Dark Endings  Fading Fires
by TJchaos
Summary: 10 years after Naruto returned with Jiraiya, the defeated Akatsuki are back with controlled tailed beasts.
1. Chapter 1

Dark Endings – Fading Fires

A/N This is something that has been lurking around for a few months now. I will of course continue 'Fury' and '20th' as well. So don't worry about them, although the pace of updates may slow. I've started posting word counts for my stories over on the tjchaos page that is linked in my fanfiction dot net profile.

This story is set about 10 years after Naruto returned from his training trip with Jiraiya. So the 'Rookie Nine' should all be around 25 years old. It will be written that the akatsuki were basically defeated and that Konoha has had a time of relative peace since. There are some bad implications for Jiraiya in the current manga story so if anything happens to him that will probably be the divergent point for this story. I think I've been holding off working on this story in order to see what happens in the current manga arc but I'm also getting to the point of saying 'screw it' and just go with what I've got.

This one is rated M primarily for violence. The first chapter is likely going to be the tamest one of this story. Yes it's another NaruHina story of sorts anyway. The primary category is Tragedy and this first chapter is just the opening for that.

Ch. 1

Jiraiya woke with a start, nearly crying out. Glancing about the small room of the inn he and Naruto were staying at he didn't notice anything out of place. It wasn't that late, in fact Naruto hadn't turned in yet and was likely still out in the nearby woods working on some jutsu or another. He couldn't pin it down but somehow he knew that something was horribly wrong. He figured they were at least two days from Konoha. He mused for a moment trying to force the bad feeling away but it wouldn't fade. He made an unusual decision and started packing. He was going to find Naruto and they were heading home, immediately, in the dark.

Late in the evening the next day Naruto and Jiraiya walked around a bend in the road. Naruto smiled in anticipation of finally seeing the village for the first time after almost a full month. It wasn't anywhere near as bad when he had returned several years earlier from his last major training mission with the Toad Sage but he still missed the place fiercely. His stomach rumbled slightly at the thought of soon visiting Ichiraku's for some good ramen for a change. Jiraiya had annoyed him to no end dragging him off with no explanation, setting them off on a forced march home through the night and throughout the entire next day. They were running on soldier pills, which his stomach was not happy about and was now starting to complain. Despite his feelings of unease, Jiraiya smiled at the rumbling sound while Narutos pace increased slightly. They both stumbled to a halt as they saw several pillars of smoke rising up from various points in the village. Looking closer they realized that the entire main gate was gone along with a good section of the wall that had once supported the missing gate.

Naruto and Jiraiya skidded to a stop at the makeshift barrier where the gate used to be. Naruto immediately recognized the chuunin standing guard there, his left arm heavily bandaged. He glanced around and felt the presence of at least two ANBU teams but other than the single shinobi standing guard there was no visible defenders at the gate.

"Udon, what happened?" Naruto practically yelled.

Udon looked up in shock, Naruto and the Toad Sage weren't expected back for another month or two.

"It was the akatsuki, they sent the Yonbi to destroy us." The young man whispered as his eyes fell to the ground.

"The akatsuki have been gone for years though! Damn it we beat them!" Naruto yelled causing Udon to flinch.

Before Naruto could ask any further questions he heard a familiar voice call out his name. He looked up and saw the pink hair of one of his closest friends. He was shocked to see that her right arm was in a cast.

"Sakura?" Naruto was stunned. He never expected to see Sakura in such a state. Even if she managed to break her arm as the cast indicated her own medical jutsu skills should have set it right in short order. He glanced down at the small boy holding her left hand, he looked much like his father Sasuke, except the boy almost always had a smile on his face unlike his father, who never smiled at that age. Naruto remembered that he had just entered the academy a short time ago. That perpetual smile was missing now. Before anything more could be said Jiraiya spoke up.

"Where is Tsunade?" The Toad Sage asked intently.

Naruto looked puzzled, there was an odd edge of fear to his masters voice that he had never heard before.

"I'm sorry." Sakura said softly with a slight shake to her voice as she also looked down to the ground. "She sacrificed herself to save us all, even Sasuke and myself working together were not able to slow the damn thing down much."

There was a sudden wail full of sorrow that caused everyone in the area to stop and look at the shaking Jiraiya as the horrible sound of loss faded from his lips. Before anyone could move towards him there was an odd flash and the Toad Sage was gone.

"Damn!" Naruto yelled out as he fought back his own tears.

"Naruto." Sakura said softly. "Please, let him go for now, the village needs you. You should go see Shikamaru at the Hokage tower."

"Shikamaru? At the Hokage tower? Don't tell me that lazy bastard is going to take the Hokage title." Naruto asked.

"No of course not but he was Tsunades strategic advisor and right now he and Shizune are simply keeping the paperwork flowing. Please, just go and see him, he will explain everything. I've got to get back home and check on Sasuke and the other kids, he took more of a beating than I did and only woke up this morning.

"Naruto" Udon started to say but paused until Naruto tore his gaze away from the receding Sakura. "You have to stop by the hospital too. Konohamaru is there and he isn't doing too well."

"Damn…DAMN!" Naruto growled as he clenched his fist and Udon took a step back as a reddish haze began to emanate from Narutos eyes.

Naruto stood there in mixture of shock, anger and frustration for a moment. He glanced towards the hospital and then to the Hokage tower. He hated hospitals and somehow he knew that seeing Shikamaru was more important than seeing his injured friend.

"Naruto, relax." Sakura said as she gently grabbed his shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah I will." He took a deep breath causing the reddish hue in his eye to fade and looked at her arm in the cast. "What's up with the cast? You should be able to patch a simple break pretty quickly."

Sakura blushed slightly. "Not right now, I'm pregnant again."

"Again? Man I'm going to lose track. You guys are really going all out on that whole 'rebuilding the Uchiha clan' thing aren't you? What will this be your fifth?"

"We're hoping for twins again, that would give us six." She said as her blush deepened.

Naruto scowled. This should have been a happy time and despite the cheerfulness he had forced into his voice he still couldn't smile despite the good news from Sakura.

"Well that would be nice I guess. Although that many kids running around is kind of a scary thought."

"That many?" Sakura actually laughed. "I've still got at least ten more years, if not fifteen that I can have children. At the rate we're going we'll have at least fifteen."

"Better you than me." Naruto replied, his eyes widening slightly at the thought of fifteen children.

"Well as I said I've got to get back home." Sakura said, although she frowned slightly at Narutos words.

"Good bye uncle Naruto." The young boy finally spoke as Sakura led him off.

"Later Fuguka-san." Naruto smiled and waved to his friends son.

With his scowl returning and deepening he gave Udon a wave goodbye and hurried off to the tower.

---ooo---

"Man you are a sight for sore eyes. I didn't think I'd ever say that." Shikamaru stated as Naruto walked into the Hokages office.

Naruto looked around, everything was pretty much the same as it was the last time he was here. Except for a couple of extra desks that is. Shikamaru sat behind one and Naruto figured that Shizune was probably using the other.

"Not using Tsunades desk?" The blond shinobi asked his long time friend.

"Of course not! Do you have any idea how troublesome that would be? That desk is the Hokages and I'm just a paper pusher here. Have you talked to anyone yet?"

"Not really, just Udon and Sakura. He only told me about Konohamaru and she pretty much only told me that Tsunade sacrificed herself to save the village and that I had to talk to you."

"O.K. then, where is Jiraiya?"

"He flipped out when Sakura told us about Tsunade and vanished. I was thinking about going to try to look for him but Sakura seemed very insistent that I had to talk to you."

"Hmm, did you know exactly why you were sent off on that last training mission?"

"Just that Tsunade wanted Jiraiya to teach me some of the finer details about nature manipulation when working with multiple elements."

"Well that's not quite true." Shikamaru hesitated as he looked intently at Naruto. "She wanted you out of the village because she was expecting a fight with the village council about you."

"Why would she fight with the…" Narutos voice trailed off as the implication behind Shikamarus words hit him.

"I guess you're not as slow as we always used to tease you about being." Shikamaru smiled but Naruto saw that it was a forced smile. There was something else that was deeply bothering Shikamaru.

"She submitted my name to be the next Hokage." Naruto said quietly.

"Yes she did. Surprisingly enough the whole council didn't immediately flip out. Apparently word had reached even them that you were the most powerful shinobi to ever walk the streets of Konoha. Only Sasuke and Sakura even come close and there's simply no way that they could ever be considered. Well Sakura might have been if she wasn't married to him. It is hard to believe but in a lot of ways many of the villagers and shinobi dislike him more than they ever disliked you. Kakashi's name has been on and off the list many times over the years but he really doesn't want the job."

Naruto stared at Tsunades desk. This wasn't the way this was supposed to happen. She was supposed to be here when he took her job. She was supposed to go on and enjoy her retirement. She had been preparing him for the job for years but he never imagined that she wouldn't be here when it finally happened. He fought back tears as the realization sank in that she wouldn't be able to give him a hard time the way he had always done to her. Until she entered his life he had never had anyone he was able to look to as an older sister or even on rare occasions a mother.

"Naruto!" Shikamaru called out in alarm.

"What!" Naruto growled out in reply as he spun and stared down his old friend.

Shikamaru's heart skipped a few beats as he stared into red eyes with slit pupils. There was the faintest trace of red chakra surrounding Naruto in a thin cloud. He swallowed hard.

"Calm down, you can't lose control if you're going to become Hokage."

Naruto took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he reopened them Shikamaru was relieved to see that they had returned to Narutos normal blue.

"You're right." Naruto said with a sigh. "O.k. first things first I guess, if the council is just going to sit on their asses, I'm at least going to start acting like the Hokage while I wait for them. I'm going to need a report on our loses, how many shinobi did we lose, how many are in the hospital and the status of each. Most especially I need to know when each can be expected to return to duty. Also how badly damaged are the physical defenses of the village and how long will emergency repairs take?"

"It's getting late so I'll have the medical reports here tomorrow. The outer perimeter wall is mostly intact. The Yonbi tore through the main gate and we're figuring about a month before it's properly fixed."

"I can wait until tomorrow for the hospital report but it's completely unacceptable to have the main gate in that state for a month. Why aren't there more troops at the gate? I know you've got a few ANBU teams hidden there but that's not enough and it's going to change."

"I know it's unacceptable but Shizune and I have been overwhelmed. Some members of the council have been taking advantage of the confusion to increase their own protection."

"That is going to stop right now if I'm going to be running things." Naruto said.

"Glad you said that." Shikamaru said as he handed Naruto some rolled up documents.

"What's this?" He asked.

"They're for you from Tsunade, she wrote them up just before she took on the four tails. Although she said only to give them to you if you started acting like the boss."

Naruto took the papers, unrolled them and read silently to himself as his eyes began to well up slightly.

'_Kid, if you're reading this, then I am gone but the village should be safe. I left a copy of my final decree that leaves you as the acting Hokage, sorry I won't be around to harass you. Initial reports from the first contact ANBU teams state that the Yonbi is approaching. Seems that some of the akatsuki have survived and are a problem again. I wish I had more time but we just got word that the damn demon is close to the gate. We know that they can't have more than eight demons, I'll do my best to make sure that number will be one less to make things easier on you._

_Good luck, take care of the village._

_Love always,_

_Tsunade.'_

Naruto looked at the second piece with a quick glance. Seeing it was nothing more than an official statement from Tsunade that instated him as the acting Hokage he read the first again, suppressing a mild quaver. He quickly regained control though and turned to Shikamaru.

"What else? Something is bothering you, more so than the attack."

Shikamarus face fell as the false front he had been maintaining fell away for a brief moment.

"The 'Rookie Nine' is now six." He finally said quietly.

'The Rookie Nine' had actually become somewhat famous since the three squads all made it past the first two parts of that chuunin exam all those years ago. As a whole they hadn't become anywhere near as well known as the 'Sannin' or groups such as 'The Seven Swordsmen of the Mist' but in Konoha itself they were practically revered by every genin team that graduated the academy after them.

"What happened?" Naruto answered in a subdued voice.

"Well Chouji, Ino and I were part of the first group that tried to slow the thing down after it destroyed the gate. I couldn't completely paralyze the thing with my shadow possession jutsu but I only slowed it down a bit for a few seconds anyway before it overloaded my jutsu and the backlash knocked me out." Shikamaru paused and looked down in shame. "I was unconscious when they died."

Naruto hesitated, he wanted to reach out but he and Shikamaru had never been close like that. So he simply waited.

"Ino actually attempted to use her Shintenshin no Jutsu on the demon and it destroyed her mind nearly instantly. From what I understand her scream could be heard for miles and two genin who saw her fall are still having nightmares about it. The demons chakra was able to track back to her body through the link in the moments before it dissolved. She had to have a closed casket funeral this morning. Even though she was brain dead and her body was torn up, she might have survived at the hospital as a vegetable but there simply wasn't enough time or personal. Chouji apparently flipped out when he saw that and with me also down he went overboard with his Baika no Jutsu. From what the witnesses saw he actually pushed the Yonbi back for a few seconds before it literally ripped him apart." Shikamaru paused again.

Naruto looked at his friend intently. The third person had to be someone on 'Team 8'. Sakura had mentioned checking on Sasuke so he was still alive. He had one very close friend on Team 8 and he began to feel a sense of dread.

Shikamaru saw the slight edge of unease in Narutos eyes and he forced himself to push his own lose down.

"The last of us 'Rookies' killed was Kiba and Akamaru." Shikamaru paused as he took note of the slight but quickly buried signs of relief in Naruto. "He and Akamaru took out one of the demons eyes using Garuoga but the thing caught them before they could get out of the eye socket and it crushed them both."

There was a brief moment of silence before Narutos stomach rumbled softly and a wave of dizziness passed through him. He fought off the dizziness but was left with a headache.

"Sorry about that, I haven't had anything to eat since yesterday."

"Well get out of here then. No wait, there's one more thing." Shikamaru went to Tsunade's desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a small box. "This belonged to the Fourth and Tsunade-sama wanted you to have it. You should wear it since you are now acting Hokage.

Naruto opened the box to see a red and white bandana. He quietly put it in his pocket.

"Later, I'm going to visit the hospital and check a few things out in the village. I need a copy of all the current squad assignments before I leave though.

Shikamaru went back to his own desk and quickly handed him a bound report.

Naruto quickly left the tower and headed to the hospital. Easily bulling his way past the front desk clerk, despite visiting hours being long over. After getting the info he wanted first of course.

Naruto quietly entered the room and found Moegi sleeping in the chair next to Konohamaru's bed. The small amount of makeup the young woman wore was streaked from her tears. Naruto turned from her to his long time friend and 'rival' and frowned. There didn't seem to be a mark on the young man and there was no sign of any bandages. He walked to the end of the bed and checked the chart and notes. It told him that his friend was in a severe chakra depletion coma.

"Damn." He said softly.

The slight sound was enough to wake Moegi though and her eyes went wide when she saw him standing there.

"Oh, Naruto!" She said as she jumped up and practically flung herself at him.

"Easy there Moegi, what happened?" He said as he pulled away from her.

"He pulled a Tajuu Kage Bunshin jutsu during the attack. He actually was ecstatic for a moment because he had generated a bit more than a hundred clones. He nearly keeled over immediately but the academy was being attacked and he held on long enough to save dozens of students. Once he saw that the students were clear though he collapsed and after Tsunade defeated the demon he was found and brought here."

"Well this is something I can actually help with here." Naruto said softly, causing Moegi's eyes to widen as he reached over and pushed the nurse call button.

Within moments the nurse arrived, obviously surprised to find both Moegi and Naruto in the room.

"You both know that visiting hours are over, you especially Naruto." She said sternly.

"Relax Kaori-san, if it makes it any easier I can easily be here 'officially'." Naruto smiled as Kaori rolled her eyes.

"Please, the only times you've ever been here 'officially' Uzumaki was for us to patch you up. Something we've been doing since around the time you could walk if my memory serves me right. You've always been one of the biggest nuisance patients we've ever had. If you weren't smuggling weapons in, you were escaping, excuse me, I mean 'checking yourself out early' before you were properly healed. The times you weren't here to be patched up you were an even bigger headache. I'm actually stunned that you got this far into the hospital without the whole hospital knowing about it." She sounded rough but she had a soft smile for Naruto that gave lie to her small rant.

"You smuggled weapons into the hospital?" Moegi said as her eyes grew wide again.

"Of course, a shinobi should never be unarmed. That was especially true for me when I was really young, before I was even in the academy and it simply became a habit." He chuckled quietly.

"To this day he was the only four year old that we ever had to take a kunai away from."

"Luckily they didn't find my second one." Naruto said with a wink to Moegi.

"He got even worse once he became an academy student. From then on we had to worry about explosive tags."

"Sounds like your childhood was even more colorful than what you ever led on Naruto." Moegi said.

"Well it was certainly different. Anyway enough of the fond memory stuff, do you have anyone on duty who can handle chakra transfer? I'd like to help Konohamaru here."

Kaori looked thoughtful as she eyed Naruto, looked to Konohamaru and gave Moegi a quick glance.

"Well I could do it and it would help greatly. The entire staff is running on the jagged edge and we've had to hold off on cases like Konohamaru here. He'll most likely be fine in a week or two on his own."

"Going by his chart he's basically unhurt except for the severe chakra depletion. I'm no medical ninja but one thing I've got plenty of is chakra. Besides I need every able bodied ninja on their feet as quickly as possible." Naruto said.

"You need?" Kaori wasn't about to let that one slide.

Naruto simply pulled out Tsunade's decree and let Kaori read it. Well I can't argue with that and I am the senior medical ninja on duty right now so why don't you stand on the other side of the bed and we'll see what we can do."

Naruto stood opposite of Konohamaru and as Kaori put her hands on the comatose young mans chest Naruto covered her hands with his own.

"Done this before I see?" Kaori said and Naruto merely nodded.

He built up his own chakra into his hands to the point where they started to softly glow with a blue light, washing away the even softer green glow emanating from Kaori's hands. Kaori concentrated, pulling softly at first from Narutos chakra and when his chakra didn't waver she pulled a bit more than she normally would using this type of medical jutsu.

"Wha?" Konohamaru whispered as his eyes fluttered open after a few minutes.

"You Sarutobis just don't know when not to push past your limits do you?" Naruto said with a laugh.

"Naruto? What are you doing here? Wait where am I?"

"You're in the hospital." Moegi said as she crowded in close.

"Naruto here just gave up some of his chakra to pull you out of a chakra depletion coma." Kaori said.

"I'll just put you down as owing me one. So Kaori-san when can I expect to see him back on duty?" Narutos grin grew wider.

"He'll most likely have to stay throughout tomorrow just for observation but after that he should be o.k. for light duty over the next week or so." Kaori answered.

"Good, I expect to see you day after tomorrow at the tower then for your duty assignment." Naruto said to Konohamaru.

"See you? What do you mean?" Konohamaru was obviously confused by Narutos words.

Naruto simply smiled more and handed Tsunades decree to Konohamaru. The younger mans eyes lost their cloudiness as they grew wide.

"Better get used to calling me 'Boss' again." Naruto chuckled.

"We should go Naruto, he still needs some real rest. Don't stay too late now Moegi." Kaori said as she tugged on Narutos arm and led him to the door.

"Right then, see you later guys." Naruto gave a wave as he left the room.

"You know you really need some real food." Kaori said as the door closed and they were alone in the hall.

"It can wait. I can easily push myself a lot further. Heck even the hunger headache stopped bothering me. If you're up to it I'd like to see about transferring more of my chakra to any patients or medic nins that could be helped by tapping into my chakra."

"Are you sure?"

"I could order you, if it will make you feel better." Naruto gave her what he thought was his 'charming' smile.

"Well if it was almost anyone else I would still refuse but your chakra levels are truly ridiculous. Even in the state you're in now it won't hurt you and it would be a great help here.

Naruto smiled as Kaori sighed. They spent the next hour or so going from room to room attending to a couple of dozen shinobi. Kaori had the on duty medic nins join them one at a time so they could tap into Narutos incredible reserves. When Naruto stumbled though Kaori called a halt to what they were doing.

"That's enough, even you have your limits. Get out of here and get some real food. Consider it doctors orders, not even your current position can countermand that." Kaori smiled.

"Trust me, real food is on the list." Naruto laughed as his stomach rumbled and Kaori smiled.

"Just make sure it's a short list or better yet put getting some real food at the top of the list."

"Sorry, I've got a couple of more things to check into first." Naruto flinched slightly at the change in expression on Kaori's face. "I won't forget, I promise!"

"O.k. then its time you got out of here." Kaori sighed and gave him a push towards the lobby.

"I'll stop by tomorrow then." Naruto called out as he walked off down the hall and suddenly quiet he headed out of the hospital.

It wasn't long before Naruto stood before the doorway of the Kagetsu clan manor. Although one of the smaller clans in Konoha they were closely related to one of the wealthier families in Fire Country and they held a seat on the council. Naruto had dealt with a good portion of the family that lived outside of the village when he was much younger. Although he liked some of the ones he had met he hadn't been overly impressed with much of them at the time. He wasn't surprised that the segment of the family here in Konoha was one of the clans taking advantage of the current confusion. He glanced around and easily felt the presence of the ANBU team that had been assigned to guard this door. His hands blurred with a few seals and with a simple jutsu he knew that no one was behind the door. He smiled as the 'spy' jutsu faded.

It only took an instant for him to generate a decently powerful Rasengan. His smile got slightly larger as he slammed it into the doorway. The double doors literally exploded into uncountable splinters. He then simply crossed his arms and waited. The four ANBU appeared in a flash, weapons drawn looking obviously confused. Naruto could tell that they were all nervous as they faced him. He had done a brief tour within the ANBU dark ops a few years ago and had earned a great deal of respect among their ranks during that time. Since then not a single member of ANBU would give themselves or any full ANBU team for that matter, good odds if they had to face him.

"What is the meaning of this!" The clan head suddenly appeared, flushed with anger.

Naruto handed him a copy of Tsunade's decree that made him acting Hokage. The mans eyes bugged out as he read the paper. Naruto couldn't tell by looking at their masks but he felt that the ANBU team were all suddenly smiling. They would not have been ANBU if they couldn't read the decree without being seen as the Kagetsu clan head was reading it.

"It is my understanding that you have used the confusion from the aftermath of the Yonbi's attack to requisition an ANBU guard that would be better suited to protecting Konoha." Naruto said with a tone of obviously cold anger in his voice. "Seeing that you no longer have a door that needs to be guarded I am reassigning them."

"But." The clan head started.

"If you are concerned about the rest of your residence I can easily remove it from Konoha for you." Naruto narrowed his eyes as he glared at the clan head before turning to the ANBU captain. "ANBU-san please take your team to the main gate and finish the rest of your shift in whatever capacity the co-coordinator there needs."

"Of course Naruto-sama." The entire ANBU team bowed and vanished.

Naruto turned as he made his eyes shift to the Kyuubi red and returned to glaring at the clan head before continuing quietly. "You would do well to not put your own clans comfort above the security of the village during a time such as this. Even your clan's seat on the council will not protect you from my wrath if anyone in the village gets hurt because your clan is using resources they should not be using during a time like this."

The clan heads mouth opened and closed a few times as if he were a fish out of water. He decided to keep quiet and simply nodded yes to Naruto. The blonde young man turned and leaped leaving the clan head to sigh in relief.

Naruto was stunned beyond belief. It seemed like months had passed since he and Jiraiya had returned to Konoha even though it had only been a few hours. After leaving the Kagetsu manor he had wandered semi-aimlessly through the streets of the village. Word had apparently quickly spread throughout the village and he didn't encounter any more improperly assigned ninja teams. He had a short list that he had checked after the Kagetsu home and he was pleased to see things more like what he thought was appropriate. He was greatly saddened by the scenes of destruction he saw during his 'tour'.

It didn't take long before he unconsciously led himself to Ichiraku's. His stomach kicked into complaining overdrive once the wonderful smell of ramen hit his nose. He had been so stressed the past few hours that despite his stomachs occasional reminders he had continued to completely forget that he had started craving real food before he even got to the now missing main gate of the village.

"Hey old man, I can I start out with a bowl of miso please." Naruto called out as he took a seat.

"Ahh, Naruto it is very good to see you have returned to the village early. You almost missed me, I was going to be closing up soon." Teuchi said with a smile.

Luckily this area of the village had been spared from the attack. Naruto said a silent prayer of thanks that this one long time sanctuary of his was o.k. Despite Teuchi's smile at the sound of Narutos voice the blond ninja knew that to some degree it was forced. There simply had been too much death and destruction for any true smiles. Naruto suddenly panicked when he realized that Ayame wasn't around.

"Hey Teuchi-sama." Naruto paused for a moment as his old friend turned around. "Is Ayame-san o.k.?"

The look of relief on the old mans face was enough to set Narutos mind at ease, maybe there were a few true smiles after all.

"She's fine Naruto, just out on a delivery."

"That's good." Naruto became quiet as he slowly began to eat his ramen.

This was a first for him, never before had he been brought so low that not even ramen could lift his spirits, even if just a little bit. He was lost in his thoughts when a soft familiar voice spoke his name behind him.

"Naruto-kun?"

"Hey Hinata. It's good to see that you're o.k. I'm really sorry about Kiba. How did your family make out during the attack?" Naruto replied softly as he turned and saw one of his closest friends.

"Thank you, Shino is actually taking losing Kiba worse than I am. Kiba was the closest Shino had to any siblings. As for my family, we did o.k., no lives lost and only a few in the hospital."

There was an odd silence between the two of them for a moment. For many others it would have been awkward but they had slowly been developing a close and yet oddly distant relationship over the past several years. Hinata thought back over the years of their relationship. For many years she had semi-secretly been more than somewhat obsessed with the blond ninja. Things between them were tense when he finally figured out that she was attracted to him but their friendship grew despite that awkward and thankfully short time. Although to her great disappointment, only their friendship grew. Her obsessive feelings had gotten a little overly excited when Sakura and Sasuke got married but Naruto continued to ignore Hinatas subtle overtures.

Although truth to be told, she didn't like the idea of being some sort of consolation prize for him because Sakura was no longer available. For months after the Uchiha-Harano marriage though, Hinata was baffled that Naruto still flirted furiously with the pink haired kunoichi. In fact he seemed to flirt even more with her after her marriage than he did when she was single. Oddly enough Sasuke wasn't bothered by it at all. For a brief time the rumor mill had the three of them pegged as having some sort of shared relationship. Sasuke had been the one to put an end to those rumors, he hadn't even used any violence either, much to many peoples surprise. He had simply laughed, long and loudly when someone had finally approached him about Narutos behavior towards his wife. When he had finally stopped laughing he said something along the lines that Naruto was such an idiot he didn't really know that Sakura was married, despite being Sasuke's best man. The mere sight of Sasuke laughing had actually shaken quite a few of the people who witnessed the incident. Which of course helped spread word about it and finally killed the 'threesome rumor'

It took a good deal of sake a couple of years after Sakura and Sasuke's marriage one time that Hinata actually managed to finagle a night alone with Naruto. Part of her was secretly hoping to seduce him even then, although she knew deep in her heart that it wouldn't work. It took many hours and many, many bottles of sake, Hinata had been stunned at the time with how much alcohol Naruto could consume, but after a lot of side tracked conversation he finally admitted something she had never expected. Her long time obsessive crush had no intention of ever dating anyone. In fact he hadn't seriously considered Sakura as anything more than a friend since they were fifteen, roughly a decade ago.

Hinata was troubled for many months after finding out that the only reason why he had flirted so much with the pink haired kunoichi was because he believed that she would always say no as long as there was the slightest chance she could have Sasuke. Sakura was in a bizarre way something of a safety valve for the hyper active blond. Now that she was married he could endlessly flirt with her and never worry that she would take any of it seriously. Sakura herself had long ago decided his flirting was harmless and she gotten into the habit of simply ignoring him completely. Granted Naruto earned himself a great many bruises and minor injuries at Sakuras hands before she came to that conclusion.

By that time that drunken night happened all of his friends had known about the Kyuubi for several years. Hinata though was sure that she was the only one that knew that the exact reason why Naruto wouldn't date anyone was because of the Kyuubi. She figured that Sakura and Sasuke must have understood but she thought that Naruto hadn't told them and they didn't know for sure. He had hurt Sakura once during a mission when the damn fox had taken partial control of him. The scars on her arm were for all intents and purposes invisible, to anyone without the Byakugan anyway. Out of curiosity, Hinata had once looked and seen the faint traces of them. It had taken a few months after that mission that he had hurt Sakura on before he himself realized that deep down he wouldn't allow any woman to get close to him. After hearing him drunkenly explain all of that, from that drunken night on, Hinatas crush started to slowly fade away. She was deeply saddened as she helped him stumble home and that night was when she really became one of his closest friends, if not the closest. Even if neither of them realized it at the time. After that she continued to simply be a close friend to him and nothing more. Over the years they had actually gotten much closer than either wanted to admit, publicly anyway. As long as she never even hinted at anything remotely romantic between the two of them anyway. The one time she had, he had become instantly distant and that was the end of that.

One thing she found even odder was that as her romantic feelings for Naruto faded away she didn't have any real interest in dating anyone else herself. She expected that in due time her family would begin pressuring her to have children of her own to do her part to continue the Byakugan line but she simply had no interest to start dating. With the changes in the whole main and branch family structure of the Hyuga clan though, even that pressure wouldn't be too great any time soon. Hinata sometimes wondered if she had somehow destroyed that desire within herself by focusing so much on Naruto, it was almost as if without him something within her had withered and died.

She looked her long time friend over and sighed mentally. She had never seen him so quiet. She reached out and softly put her hand on his shoulder. Despite all the years of becoming one of his best friends he still tensed up for a brief fraction of a second at her touch.

"So Shino isn't taking Kiba's death well? I really am sorry, I should have been here." Naruto said and Hinata felt a brief, intense flare of anger buried deep within him. "Kiba didn't have a girlfriend or anything did he?"

"No, nothing serious anyway. He certainly dated a lot of girls though."

"I used to think that you two would hook up one day." Naruto said softly.

Hinata hesitated. It was a common belief, if not her and Kiba, then it was her and Shino people would wonder about. Until Shino had married a younger kunoichi himself anyway.

"Naruto." She paused again. "Much like yourself I don't really want to date anyone."

"I'm sorry Hinata, I really hope it's no longer because of me. I just wish you would find someone or at least open up to the idea of looking. This is one path I don't want to share with anyone, especially any of my friends."

"Maybe someday." She said. "We should change the subject, we've already talked about this dozens of times or I should say you've told me that dozens of times. Tell me about your meeting with Shikamaru." She said as she released his shoulder and sat down giving a quiet signal to Teuchi.

Teuchi frowned slightly at their interplay. They had both become long time favored customers of his and even though he had no real idea why they both decided to remain alone in life he didn't give them a hard time about it despite wanting to. His daughter also especially favored the idea of these two customers becoming a couple but despite their obvious close friendship, there had never any outward sign of romance of any sort, not since the very first days she had started coming here with him anyway, all those many years ago. They were here often enough together that Hinata was often able to place an order without saying anything as she just did. Usually whenever Naruto was eating miso she would order the same. Teuchi had been able to tell what she wanted by which small signal she gave for several years now.

"They're discussing making me the next Hokage." He answered quietly.

"I had heard." She replied after a short pause, she could sense that he was incredibly unhappy about finally having his long time goal within his grasp.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this." He muttered practically to himself as he pulled out Tsunades decree and handed it to Hinata. "She was supposed to be retiring soon."

Hinata took the paper and quickly looked it over, her eyes widening. "This says that you are the acting Hokage now. I didn't know about this."

"It was pretty much Tsunades last decree, I've already started doing some 'Hokage' type stuff since I left the tower. Actually that reminds me. Although Shikamaru wanted me to do this before I left the tower I wanted to walk around one last time and see the village before it becomes widely known."

Naruto took his leaf emblem hitai-ate off and pulled out a piece of red and white cloth. He tied the cloth around his head, covering his forehead. It took the exact position of where his hitai-ate once rested, only instead of the leaf emblem it sported the kanji for fire.

"Supposedly the fourth wore this during the time after the Sandaime appointed him to become the fourth and before the council confirmed him as the Yondaime." Naruto said solemnly.

He glanced at his hitai-ate and grinned slightly before he tied it around his neck, much like Hinata's. He gave her a half hearted smile at the new similarity between them.

"I don't remember ever hearing that he wore anything like that Naruto." Hinata said as she smiled back at him.

"Yeah well he probably only wore it for an hour or two, the council was overjoyed with the idea of him being Hokage. With me they'll probably argue for a month or two, if not longer." Naruto sighed softly as he thought about the arguments he was likely going to be involved with in the near future.

"Surely if they all knew that the Fourth was…" Hinata started before Naruto cut her off.

"That's not common knowledge to this day and you know it."

"Yes I do but you should not be so willing to put it aside and ignore it either. I know you want to earn the title on your own merits. Just keep in mind that your own merits mean nothing to some on the council no matter how outstanding, pure, noble and all that those merits are. Some of them will never see past the fox inside of you, if those ones specifically find out about the Fourth that could make a big difference. You should not accept the curse the Fourth saddled you with and then not take advantage of what he is to you."

Naruto looked at her quietly. With most people he'd continue to argue but over the years he'd seen that whenever she spoke like this Hinata was pretty much always right.

"I'll think about it." He finally said as he looked down.

"Well also keep in mind that you do have many allies on the council as well."

"Really?" He looked up in surprise.

"Of course, if you didn't, do you think they'd still be arguing?"

"I figured that had more to do with Sasuke being so stubborn."

"Sasuke's position on the council is still considered dubious by most, even among some of your supporters. Tsunade-sama may have forgiven him and given him a full pardon but many will never trust him. With you, the only ones that still look down on you because of the fox are generally the ones who are less intelligent. Everyone who knows about the fox knows that you had nothing to do with it. Sasuke on the other hand left the village of his own free will. Even if he did wind up killing both Orochimaru and Itachi many will never trust him. The taint of willingly associating with Orochimaru may never fade and after Itachi, many will never trust any Uchiha."

"So if it isn't Sasuke tying up everything in the council about my appointment, I wonder who it is."

"Would you believe, your biggest supporter is actually my father." Hinata laughed as Narutos eyes grew wide.

"Your father? I thought he hated me."

"He's like that. He's actually been quite impressed with you ever since you beat Neji during that chuunin exam years ago. He'd likely never admit it but I'm pretty sure he feels very grateful to you since he holds you responsible for reconciling his relationship with Neji and easing the tension between the main and branch families."

They both had a lot on their minds so they grew quiet as they ate. By the time Hinata finished her bowl of ramen, Naruto had wolfed down two additional bowls. He would have ordered more but Ayame had returned, giving Naruto and Hinata a big smile and Teuchi had run out of broth. Being late Naruto figured a few cups of instant ramen back home would top him off, instead of asking Teuchi to whip up a fresh batch of broth.

"Naruto…" Hinata paused for a moment as she looked at her long time friend. "Please take care, you have a lot ahead of you."

"Of course, you do the same. Are you sure that you don't want me to walk you home?"

"I'll be fine, you should go home and get some rest." She gave a small forced chuckle.

"Hmph, I think it would be a good idea to talk to you father though."

"Naruto it's late, it can wait until tomorrow. Besides the council discussion regarding you was rather heated today and they're taking the next few days off. You have plenty of time to speak to my father before the council meets again."

"If you say so." He said only half convinced.

"I do, now have a good night." She gave a short wave and quickly faded into the distance.

Naruto stood there for a few moments watching her walk away and for the first time in a long time he felt a small pang of regret that he quickly suppressed and forced himself to ignore before he turned and headed home.

A/N - don't worry I will be going back to the Yonbi's attack on the village in chapter 2.


	2. Chapter 2

Ch. 2

A/N - As the others say Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto. The only Naruto stuff I own at this time is the Manga books from 1 to 27 and the first four uncut DVD box sets. (Sorry I forgot this disclaimer for ch 1.)

I was looking this story over and figured to split what I had written since I had over 17k words. So the current ch. 2 is in the 12k word area. I made a mistake trying to post this, my apologies if anyone got two alerts for the one chapter.

---ooo---

Naruto stopped walking after only a few steps and he stood there for a few moments not far from Ichiraku's. That small pang of regret had faintly returned despite his effort to suppress it. For those few moments he turned that strange feeling over in his head. He wasn't one to really regret much of anything when it came to decisions he had made. That was simply how he had been going through his life for as long as he could remember. He shook his head slightly and decided he'd deal with this odd feeling later.

With a rustle he vanished. It didn't take long before he was standing on the Hokage monument. For a change he sat down on the carved image of Tsunade that was etched into the rock. He looked out over the village and sighed as he took in the sight of all the lights that pushed away the darkness despite the late hour. He reached into his vest and pulled out a small leather folder. Flipping it open to reveal a few pictures he always carried. He brushed past most of them until he came to a picture of himself and Tsunade. They were arguing playfully with Jiraiya smirking in the background. Silently tears fell down his face.

He wasn't alone for very long before he heard a familiar voice.

"Naruto? How are you doing?" Iruka asked softly as he walked out of the darkness.

"O.K. I guess. Not feeling like much of a shinobi right now though." Naruto answered as he wiped his tears away.

"Naruto…" Iruka hesitated. "Many would consider your lack of any ability to hide your feelings to be your biggest failure as a shinobi. Trust me on this though, everyone who knows you, considers it to be one of your biggest strengths." Iruka smiled softly.

Sometime before he turned eighteen Naruto had grown slightly taller than Iruka. Even with being taller, Naruto still looked up to his old sensei.

"You know Sasuke and I once got in a argument about the two of us being orphans. He said I could never understand his loss because I never knew my parents or any family. I told him that I sometimes thought that being with you sometimes made me think that was what it must be like having a father." Naruto glanced down at the picture in his hands. "Many times around Tsunade, I thought that was what it was like having a big sister. There were some times though, that she would make me think she was like what having a mother must be like."

"That's not surprising, you really never had anyone close to you like that." Iruka said.

"Yeah well it's not like any of your girlfriends would have liked filling that roll." Naruto chuckled softly.

It wasn't easy to laugh, even that little bit this time but he had been hiding his sadness behind laughter for as long as he could remember. Each soft raspy chuckle became slightly easier than the last. The slight flare of color on Iruka's cheeks certainly helped as the older man sputtered for a moment.

"Naruto, that's hardly fair." Iruka replied after he regained his composure.

"Nope, but it was good for a laugh."

The two stood in silence for a moment. Iruka could easily see the pain lurking in Narutos eyes but he knew that Naruto would pull through.

"Besides what did you even know about any of the girls I dated?" Iruka asked as he raised an eyebrow and he glared at Naruto.

"Well now that you mention it, nothing actually. You do date girls don't you?" Naruto laughed as a look of outrage crossed Iruka's face for a brief instant. "I'm only kidding, I noticed a long time ago how you would often check out Ayame when we ate at Ichiraku's. Although I don't think you ever went out with her."

"That's true, I never dated Ayame, she is very cute but a bit too young for me." Iruka still glared at Naruto, unsure how the subject had been twisted over to his own dating but he wasn't about to push Naruto now.

"Did…did you ever regret not taking her out?" Naruto asked tentatively.

Iruka was a bit puzzled. He knew Naruto well enough to know that the blonde ninja was working his way to something that he was uncomfortable with.

"Well, sometimes, despite our age difference. There's always a bit of regret whenever you don't look into a possible relationship with someone that you think is attractive." Iruka answered.

"I don't really know. The only girl I ever asked out was Sakura and I think I stopped being serious about that after that one fight with Orochimaru." Naruto said quietly as his hand brushed across his stomach.

"I understand. The fox certainly complicates things."

"Sometime after that fight I realized that I just couldn't get past the fact that I hurt her. It was especially easy blocking any thoughts of anyone else and simply pretend to chase Sakura. Since she was madly in love with Sasuke there was never any real chance of anything happening between us."

"You never thought about anyone else?"

"Not really, how could I? With this thing inside of me? I just figured everyone would be better off if I never dated." Naruto replied.

"I really don't know, Naruto. That's a hard decision to live with I would imagine."

"I never really thought of it like that. It was just the way things had to be I thought. There was really only one woman who ever tried to change my mind, sometime after Sasuke and Sakura got married but I explained the whole thing to her and she said she accepted my decision."

"Ah, that must have been Hinata." Iruka said with a slight smile as Narutos eyes widened.

"Damn, did everyone but me know?" Naruto grumbled.

"Pretty much. It was pretty funny all the way back when the two of you were in the academy." Iruka laughed. "Are you having second thoughts then?"

"No, not really." Naruto paused for a moment as he looked down. "I don't think so anyway. Damn, I guess I'm not really sure anymore. It's just that whole regret thing. I don't think I've ever second guessed myself before and I'm not really sure I am now. I've always simply wrote off any mistakes as learning experiences and never really thought I would have done anything differently. I always looked to the future, you know? The past is past and I never wished to change it. I simply always thought that 'next time' I would do things differently when I screwed up something. I never thought anything along the lines of wishing I had done something differently the first time around. I never even thought that this one decision was even a mistake. It was, like I said the way things had to be."

"Well, normally I wouldn't say this but right now, with the current situation, I think you've got enough things to deal with. You probably should consider holding off on thinking about this until things settle down a bit." Iruka lightly grasped Naruto's shoulder. "After all it's waited this long, a little longer probably won't hurt."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Naruto grimaced as Iruka's words made him think about the mountain of paperwork he'd likely have to deal with tomorrow.

"Well it's getting late, you should get some sleep, like I said you've got a lot to deal with."

"Yeah, you're right…Thanks."

"Any time Naruto, any time."

With a wave to each other they headed off in different directions. Iruka had always tended to worry about Naruto, even now. Most of the time Naruto was never really aware of it but tonight he really appreciated how Iruka would check in on him like this.

A few days later Naruto found himself once again sitting at Tsunades desk, despite being only a few days it was becoming almost 'normal'. There was something about sitting at this desk though that always bothered him. Something he refused to really think about but it was constantly spinning around in his unconscious whenever he sat here. Once the council finally decided about his position he felt he would no longer have to deal with this particular irritation, one way or another the desk would not be bothering him. Either he'd replace the thing or it'd be someone else's problem. He had been going over the reports from the attack for hours and he felt like he had a pretty good idea of all the details. His eyes drifted back to one report in particular. He stole a quick glance out the window and sighed as he realized the sun had set some time ago.

"Iwana!" Naruto yelled out and the door opened immediately to reveal an older chuunin wearing an eye patch.

"Yes Uzumaki-sama." The man said as he stood in front of the desk while bowing.

"Would you knock that off already, you make me sound like an old man. I've told you that you can just call me Naruto." Naruto grumbled.

"You are acting Hokage and that would not be appropriate." The man answered curtly.

"O.K. o.k. then, can you at least stick with Naruto after hours when nobody else is around?" Naruto pleaded.

"Perhaps. It is still a little unsettling to think that the punk kid we used to chase around all the time has turned into my boss. Keeping to the formalities helps me take you seriously." The older man said with a soft chuckle.

Naruto sighed.

"If you insist, but if the council confirms me as Hokage I'll simply order you to relax around here. Right now I want the Uchihas here immediately."

"Yes sir!" Iwana vanished.

Naruto spent the next half hour simply skimming reports he had already read while trying to suppress his slowly growing anger that grew every time his eyes wandered over that one damning report. There was a soft knock and the door opened to reveal Sakura and Sasuke.

"Get in here and close the door." Naruto said softly.

Sasuke looked at him curiously for a moment as he could easily feel Narutos anger permeate the room and Sakura looked down at the floor.

"What's the problem?" Sasuke asked quietly.

"I've finished most of the reports about the attack and remembered something Sakura said the other day when I returned after the battle." His gaze focused on Sakura and she saw a slight tremble go through him that had to be from the barely buried anger in his eyes. "You said that even you and Sasuke working together weren't able to slow the demon down. I didn't really think much about it at the time but looking back that doesn't make any sense. You two are two of the most powerful shinobi in the world and you are both most likely a good deal stronger than Tsunade was. Care to explain to me how she was able to stop the Yonbi but the two of you together couldn't even slow the damn thing down?"

As Naruto glared at the two of them fiercely this time even Sasuke looked down in shame.

"She's my wife Naruto and she's pregnant." The dark haired Uchiha answered with his voice oddly subdued.

Narutos eyes grew instantly furious as if a switch had been thrown and the barely buried anger he was holding inside exploded.

"HOW MANY SHINOBI ARE DEAD BECAUSE THE TWO OF YOU WERE ARGUING INSTEAD OF FIGHTING THAT DAMN DEMON!" Naruto lurched up out of his chair, slamming his fist onto the desk with a loud crack as he screamed at them.

"That's not fair Naruto." Sakura said without looking up to see his red slit eyes.

"FAIR? LOOK AT THIS LIST AND YOU TELL ME ABOUT FAIR!" Naruto threw a sheet of paper at them that flew past them both and drifted to the floor.

There was a long moment of silence between the three of them. Naruto fought to bring his anger back under control before he continued although he still trembled slightly he managed to suppress his anger enough so his eyes returned to their normal blue.

"Years ago the Akatsuki took down most of the Jinchuuriki and Tailed Beasts with teams of two. Both of you are more than equal to what any of the Akatsuki were back then. Either one of you on your own should have been able to bring that thing down or at least slow it down enough for the other one of you or Tsunade to finish the job."

"Naruto." Sakura started to speak.

"Don't… do not even start or this will get really ugly, really quickly. You can both just stay seated and shut up. The two of you are partially responsible for every name on that list." He glared at Sasuke and then back to Sakura. "Both of you should have known better. Sakura, you are off active duty now and you should have taken yourself off of the active roster as soon as you knew you were pregnant. You can stay active at the hospital for now and Sasuke you can stay on your current assignment for the time being. I can't make any further decisions other than that regarding whether or not any punishment will be assigned to you both. I will likely be speaking to the council about this next time they meet though, so don't think you're off the hook about this."

"I'm so sorry Naruto." Sakura said as tears formed in her eyes and she stole a quick glance to a picture of Tsunade.

"Save it. I love you both, in a lot of ways the two of you are my family but this is going to take some time. Just get out of my office." Naruto whispered as he sank back into his chair.

None of them looked at each other as Sakura and Sasuke turned and left without saying anything more. Shortly after they left Iwana softly entered.

"Is everything o.k. Naruto?" The one eyed man asked.

"Yeah." Naruto eyed the large crack going through the center of the desk and sighed as he glanced at the same picture of Tsunade that Sakura had. "I'm going to need a new desk though."

"I'll see to it." Iwana said softly as he picked up the sheet of paper Naruto had thrown at his friends and placed it on the ruined desk.

"Thank you." Naruto said.

"No, thank you, Naruto." Iwana paused before continuing softly. "My cousin is on that list."

"You heard me out there I take it." Naruto said as he glanced at the list for what felt like the thousandth time and sure enough there was an Akame name on the list.

"Naruto, I believe the whole tower heard you." Iwana replied as he left the office.

'_Well at least this desk isn't going to bother me anymore.'_ Naruto thought to himself with a mental sigh as he sat in the office alone.

He reached over, picked up the picture of Tsunade and started crying quietly as the silence of the office wrapped around him.

Once he calmed down he spent another half hour shuffling papers and other than changing his mind about talking to the council he wrote them a short letter instead, requesting that they deal with Sasuke and Sakura. He looked at the letter and knew he wasn't going to get anything else done. With a final sigh he glanced at the clock and decided to call it a night so he could stop at Ichiraku's before they closed for the night. Rolling up the letter he stuffed it into an inner pocket of his jacket and headed out. He received silent nods from all of the on duty chuunin on his way out and he quickly found himself at his favorite ramen stand. It didn't take long before he was enjoying a bowl of his favorite meal. He looked up at Teuchi slightly puzzled after ordering a second bowl of miso, as the old man started smiling in an odd way but he soon smiled himself a bit as he felt a familiar presence.

"Hey Hinata." Naruto said softly as his friend sat down next to him.

"Rough day I hear." She replied, her voice barely above a whisper as she signaled Teuchi.

"That was fast."

"Well several people outside the tower actually heard you yelling from what I heard."

"Yeah that wasn't good." Naruto said.

They sat in silence for a few moments.

"It's not easy is it." Hinata finally stated softly.

"I haven't thought it would be easy since I was twelve but I never thought I'd ever have to deal with something like this."

"People make mistakes and other people get hurt. That is part of the job."

"Yeah, I've known that for a long time but I can't believe they screwed up that badly. The entire village could have been destroyed. If they hadn't been arguing they could have easily stopped that thing before anyone got hurt."

"Actually everyone knows that."

"That really doesn't help. They're just about the closest thing I have to family and it's hard to separate that. Which reminds me." Naruto reached into his jacket and pulled out the letter he had written earlier and handed it to Hinata.

"What's this?"

"If you could give that to your father to bring before the council I'd appreciate it, tell him I would consider it a great favor. It's a formal request for the council to deal with any punishment for Sasuke and Sakura over their inaction."

"Naruto." Hinata hesitated for a moment. "That kind of stuff is supposed to be handled by the Hokage, you should not delegate this to the council. Besides you still haven't talked to him yourself yet."

"I understand that but in this particular case I feel that I would be too biased and I don't want anyone to use that against me."

"I see. You should deliver it yourself though, if not to the council at least see my father. I'm sure he would like to talk to you as well."

"If they had confirmed me I would but since they're basically ignoring me until they hash that out, I figured I'd just return the favor. As for your dad, one of these days I'll sneak out during daylight hours and talk to him when it's not so late." For a fleeting moment Naruto smiled.

Teuchi returned with two steaming bowls and placed a bowl of miso ramen in front of each of them. They continued eating in silence.

As usual Hinata ate slower than Naruto and he finished his third bowl as she finished her first. She shook her head slightly and a small smile formed on her face for a brief moment as she watched him eat out of the corner of her eye. Naruto though caught her reaction and chuckled. Something told her to order a second bowl and spend a bit more time with her friend. He slowed down and ate his forth so they finished at the same time. They argued softly over paying but Naruto managed to out stubborn her.

"Thank you Hinata, you are the best friend I have." He said quietly as they walked away from Ichiraku's.

Hinata almost stumbled at his words. Although they had gotten very close over the years and she had been pretty sure that she was his closest friend, he had never actually told her that. For the first time in many years a soft blush played across her cheeks. She held her breath for an instant as she felt a soft flutter in her heart that she had thought was gone long ago.

---ooo---

A few days later Naruto was sitting at the new desk in the Hokage office when he felt a familiar presence. In a swirl of leaves Kakashi appeared in front of the desk. The two eyed each other silently for a moment as an odd sense of guilt passed between the two.

"So, I missed everything I hear." Kakashi finally said softly.

"Yeah, the timing of the attack sucked big time. Tsunade had also ordered Jiraiya and myself out on a mission as well." Naruto answered.

"How's he taking things?"

"I have no idea. He vanished as soon as he heard that she was gone and even the toads won't tell me where he is. They have some odd rules about mourning it seems and they deeply respect Jiraiya's privacy."

"Figures, how are you doing?" The older man asked after another brief hesitation.

"About as well as can be expected." Naruto replied.

"I heard you had something of a falling out with the Uchiha family."

"Um, yeah well that's a bit of a sore spot. I'm not holding a grudge or anything but I'm still pretty pissed off at the two of them. I'm sure I'll get over it soon enough. If anything they're probably more upset with themselves than I am."

"That bad?" Kakashi's one visible eye widened in surprise.

"Yeah." Naruto paused for a moment. "I'd rather not talk about it, I've already destroyed one desk. You can probably get the story out of Sakura, I doubt Sasuke will willingly talk to anyone about it, even you."

"I had heard a few things on my way here but I was hoping it was all exaggerations. I guess I had basically heard the real story then. I should probably check in on them then." Kakashi said softly and sadly.

"That's a good idea. Do me a favor then. When you see them, tell them I'm sorry about flipping out but it'll probably be a little while longer before I can stop by."

"I understand and I'm sure they will too." Kakashi paused again. "Are you sure that you're o.k. Naruto?"

"Yeah, I'm doing alright. Besides Hinata and Iruka are checking up on me regularly."

"Really? That's good then. I'll see you soon." With that Kakashi vanished.

---ooo---

Three months passed. Repairs on the village were nearly finished. There was a growing feeling of unease throughout the village though. There had been no word of any other attacks using the tailed beasts anywhere else. All regular lines of communication between their allies were cut off. That was not helping anyone feel any better. There were a few sightings of people wearing the black cloaks with red clouds that had not been seen in nearly a decade. Everyone in the leaf village figured that as soon as this new Akatsuki organization adjusted their plans for the loss of the Yonbi, Konoha would be attacked again. Naruto was still basically ignoring the village council, mostly in disgust since despite many heated arguments over the three months they were still deadlocked on whether or not to confirm him as Hokage. That left him stuck as 'acting Hokage'. He did have a few interesting conversations with Hinatas father that often left him scratching his head. He was still a bit surprised that Hiashi was one of his strongest supporters but over the past few months he found himself enjoying those few times he spent with his friends father.

Naruto sighed as a special alarm went off in his office. An extremely sensitive preliminary alarm keyed to bijuu chakra had gone off hours earlier so the village knew that at least one tailed beast was 'awake' somewhere in the world. He had known that the strange peace couldn't last but he half expected or rather half hoped that another village would be attacked before they tried taking on Konoha again. When a second alarm went off, he knew his home was again the target. Hopefully, with a bit of luck they would finally get some solid information on exactly who was pulling the strings of the tailed beasts this time around. He was still hoping that the rumors of an akatsuki rebirth were mostly rumors, despite the descriptions they had gotten. Although he also figured it didn't really matter, these new opponents dressed the same and had the demons under their control so it probably didn't matter. Naruto had over a dozen teams that had strategically placed themselves around Konoha as soon as that first alarm sounded. They had hopes of catching the act of summoning that seemed to be along the lines of how the Yonbi appeared within range of Konoha months ago.

Naruto waited for a signal that would tell him where to go and as he sat at the desk he suddenly felt a familiar presence appear behind him.

"It's about time you came back." Naruto said softly.

"Sorry about that. I always thought I would check out before her and I had a lot trouble dealing with her being gone." The tall figure of Jiraiya stepped out of the shadows.

Before Naruto could reply one of the many special chakra infused stones scattered across his desk glowed softly.

Damn, that's Kurenai's team." Naruto looked up to Jiraiya. "Ready to give those bastards a bit of payback? Not that I'm giving you much of a choice."

Jiraiya simply nodded and he followed Naruto out the door. Within moments they were beyond the village wall and heading off into the woods.

A few minutes later Naruto was furious as he looked down at the still forms of Hinata and Kurenai as a young medic nin treated them.

"What the hell happened?"

"We were caught by surprise by a genjutsu specialist that was able to somehow sneak past both Kurenai's own genjutsu skill and Hinata's Byakugan. Strangely though, he was surprised by my Kikai. Luckily they are not hurt too badly." Shino answered.

"Genjutsu? These two? That shouldn't be possible. Damn, you guys are supposed to be a recon team, not first contact. I would have set up things differently if I seriously thought something like this was going to happen. Did you at least get any useful information?" He said in a steely voice that caused a slight shudder to run through Shino, the waves of anger and energy emanating from Naruto were also agitating his colonies to a degree..

"I believe so. The information gathered through my allies is promising and I am sure that both Hinata and Kurenai-sama got even more before we were attacked. Luckily our opponent appeared to want some or all of us to be taken alive."

Everyone glanced into the woods away from Konoha as they felt an incredible double burst of sickening chakra.

"Alright then, I want you to get them back to Konoha. The way home should be clear. Just keep enough of your allies keyed to me and Jiraiya so the village can know what happens in case we don't make it back." Naruto spared a glance to Jiraiya who nodded."

"As you wish." Shino said softly as he moved to pick up Kurenai.

The young medic nin looked up nervously at Naruto before he gulped and cautiously picked up Hinata. It was no secret that Hinata and Naruto had been spending a lot of time together lately. In fact the village rumor mill had been constantly buzzing about the two during the past few months. Unfortunately the medic didn't know that other than sharing ramen together nearly every night for months though, nothing but talk ever happened between the two. That might have reassured him but then again if he knew that Naruto considered her his closest friend the poor medic would likely start having heart palpitations. The quick but incredibly intense flashes of killer intent coming from the furious blonde were not helping the young medic feel at ease. The medic-nin couldn't begin to imagine what it must be like to be the focus of that killer intent. In a moment though the four were gone seemingly leaving Naruto and Jiraiya alone in the woods, a soft buzzing was heard for a moment and Naruto knew they weren't completely alone.

Naruto leaped up into the trees and quickly began to surge from one tree branch to the next as he headed to the bursts of demonic chakra. Jiraiya was quick to appear along side of him.

"It really would have been nice if you had reappeared a little sooner than a little while ago." Naruto grumbled as they traveled through the tree branches.

"Yeah well, sorry about that." The older man replied in a strangely subdued voice.

"Are you sure you're up for a major battle involving bijuu? You are getting old and I worry about that arm sometimes." Naruto said in an attempt at their old banter that simply didn't help either of them feel any better.

"Don't worry about my age and my arm is fine, it's been fine for a decade. Tsunade did some fine work putting it back on." Jiraiya grumbled.

"From what I remember you had a lot more damage than just losing your arm."

Jiraiya merely grunted in response.

They continued on in silence, followed by a small cloud of unseen Kikai and were about five kilometers from Konoha before they stopped. Being pretty much two of the most powerful people in the village, despite Jiraiya being just over sixty, Naruto had sort drafted his old master to join him to be the villages first line of defense as soon as Jiraiya had reappeared at the sound of the special alarm. At the very worst they would give more than enough time for the village to be evacuated, at best nothing would pass them. Anyone who would have gotten close enough to look in their eyes would have most certainly bet that nothing would pass them.

Narutos thoughts raced as he and Jiraiya landed in a clearing. Earlier Sakura wanted to be leading the second line of defense along with her husband at the still slightly damaged village wall but Sasuke flipped out at that idea. Once Naruto got involved the conversation deteriorated even further. Bringing up the last time the two fought against one of the tailed beasts together made things even worse. The two of them felt they each had something to prove more than anyone else in the village. Naruto was tempted to throw Ino's death in her face but in the end they used her pregnancy as their final trump card to convince her to stay at the hospital. She was irritated but being nearly five months pregnant, she knew she wouldn't be effective against a tailed beast. In fact Naruto was surprised that she had even argued in the first place. He had heard that Ino's parents had been giving her an especially hard time about their daughters death. Apparently it had been even worse then he had thought if Sakura was even thinking about fighting while pregnant.

Shikamaru was coordinating all of the villages defense operations along with several follow up counter attack plans. The shinobi of the village were seething in their fury after the losses from the last attack. This time each of them swore things would be different. Nobody within the walls had the faintest clue that as intense as it was, their own anger paled before that of Naruto and Jiraiya.

Naruto swallowed hard as he realized the double burst of chakra they had felt earlier was in fact two bijuu as he heard the sounds of two massive monsters crashing through the forest heading towards Konoha. The brief moment of unease was gone in a flash though as he suddenly saw the smiling face of Tsunade in his mind. He growled softly as his now red eyes scanned the tree line waiting to see which demons they were facing. He shook himself with a snarl and his eyes shifted back to blue but his anger only seemed to intensify.

---ooo---

The fight had seemed to have gone on for hours. They were fighting both the Nibi and the Sanbi. Vast stretches of forest were simply gone. There were dozens of massive craters scattered throughout the devastation of burned and torn trees. There were also many wide swaths of arrow straight channels completely clear of vegetation that gouged deep into the earth as they stretched into the distance. Even the times Naruto had fought the Shukaku or Orochimaru there hadn't been anywhere near this much damage. Jiraiya had summoned Gamabunta a short time ago and despite the vast power of the giant toad the fight seemed to be deadlocked. Naruto was growing more and more irritated and concerned as the fight dragged on. He and Jiraiya both felt another presence at the edges of their awareness but neither of them had been able to pin it down. There were also times that Naruto was certain the two monsters simply were not fighting as well as they could be and then there were times when the two worked together all too well. Unfortunately the two demons seemed to be working together better as the fight continued. He was starting to get a really bad feeling about this.

"JIRAIYA!" Naruto screamed as he watched the black cloaked figure silently appear behind the white haired sage with no sense of any chakra.

The figure ran the toad sage through with a katana as he turned to Jiraiya in a blur. The blade erupted out of Jiraiyas chest with a fountain of blood and Naruto knew that Jiriaya's heart must have been cleaved in two. Gamabunta leaped back landing far in the distance behind Naruto, the giant toads eyes were wide in shock.

Naruto screamed out in rage. The ground shook around him for hundreds of meters. His eyes flashed instantly to red and his very blood began to boil out through his skin, taking small sections of skin with the bubbles. A haze of red energy began to quickly form around him and he was so tempted to simply surrender himself to it completely but Jiraiya's words echoed through his head. 'Don't use that power Naruto'. He heard his masters voice repeat that over and over again. He fought back against the temptation and drew on everything he had learned from Kakashi sensei and Yamato sensei. Slowly the bubbles of his blood began to subside, the small sections of missing skin quickly grew back and ever so slowly the bubbles stopped completely. The red haze faded as well and Naruto began to breath almost normally once more.

The blond shinobi glared at the unknown akatsuki figure along with the two demons behind him as the dark figure pulled the blade out of Jiraiya's chest and the toad sage fell lifelessly to the ground. Without Jiraiya Naruto didn't see anyway he and Gamabunta would get out of this alive without drawing directly from the Kyuubi, let alone beat both of the damn things. He wasn't going to let his masters death be the excuse to surrender himself to the damn fox though. Even with Gamabunta, simply escaping didn't look very good. With a vicious snarl Naruto concentrated all of his chakra, forming a massive bubbling sphere of blue energy around himself as a side effect of the unbelievable power he was gathering. He pulled more and the bubble grew even larger and started to take on highlights of red. The bubble grew even further with the red colored chakra as the foxes power slowly started overpowering the blue, making the bubble seem purple. He was pulling from the fox anyway but he wasn't about to shift into a 'tailed' state just yet and he certainly wasn't giving the damn fox any control. Biting his thumb he performed a blurred series of hand seals and as he slammed his hand to the ground, he screamed out "KUCHIYOSE NO JUTSU!" The normally black writing that appeared on the ground was red this time with actual bright chakra flames pouring off of the letters as the symbols emerged from under his hand. The flames even burned the ground with their passage.

Gamabuntas eyes grew even wider. The first to appear was Gamakichi, followed almost immediately by Gamatatsu. It didn't stop there though. There was a sound very much like rolling thunder as hundreds, no thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of pops were heard filling the air. The smoke was incredible and their foes became unseen for a moment in the haze despite the great size of the demons. Before anyone could even react it began literally raining toads.

It was definitely hundreds of thousands if not millions as smaller toads continued to fall from the sky. In addition to the dozens of large to huge toads varying in size from the four meter Gamakichi to ones nearly the size of the chief toad himself the ground was completely covered with the thousands upon thousands of smaller toads.

"They killed Jiraiya!" Naruto screamed out in a ragged voice as he fell to his knees.

All of the toads around him looked to Gamabunta who nodded, causing the ones who looked to began croaking angrily. The building fury of the toads was nearly visible as the croaking spread from toad to toad in a strange wave of sound. Their amphibian voices rose to an unbelievable volume that overpowered every sound around them. Naruto couldn't see it but the sight of all the toads appearing like that caused the akatsuki's face to pale.

The army of toads surged forward as one. The smaller toads seemingly vanishing in flashes to appear literally on top of the two demons and the akatsuki figure. The human figure stumbled and collapsed under the weight of the hundreds of small toads. As he shook most of them off, two amphibian tongues lashed out and each grabbed an arm. Two of the medium sized toads jumped forward and pulling their tongues back they each clamped down with an arm in each of their mouths. A third larger toad, roughly half the size of Gamabunta shot its tongue forward to wrap around the body of the black cloaked figure. Glancing at each other the first two toads, they nodded and leaped away in opposite directions with chakra enhanced jumps. The akatsuki member screamed out in agony as both of his arms were ripped out and massive amounts of his blood began to shoot out of his arm sockets from the torn arteries.

Naruto shook off the feeling of exhaustion. He felt a very faint unfamiliar twinge on his stomach as the seal drew on the fox though, oddly converting the demons chakra into his own to completely replenish his chakra reserves through a haze of red energy that quickly faded to blue. He shook his head, he'd figure that out later and he blurred forward to scoop up the akatsuki's katana as his now armless opponent fell to his knees before the furious Naruto. The larger toad released the black cloaked figure and with a look of cold anger Naruto swung the sword, completely severing the akatsuki's head from his body.

Glancing to his left he calmly looked over the Nibi. The thing now seemed dazed somehow, apparently without the akatsuki to guide them they had lost much of their drive. Naruto felt the katana in his hands and smiled, it was a 'chakra metal' sword. Grasping the katana he began to concentrate as he began to pump massive amounts of his chakra in it and the entire blade began to glow with a soft blue light. Rushing to his left and moving so fast that he seemed to teleport himself behind the Nibi between its two tails. Before any of the creatures, demon or toad realized he was there he waved his left arm, causing a gust of wind to blow the dozens of small toads clamped onto the bases of the Nibi's tails off the demon. He almost instantly followed through that wave with a massively wind enhanced blade strike that severed both of the Nibi's tails.

Hurling himself backwards with a flip he called out with a roar, one of Jiraiya's favorite attacks to all of the toads that were nearby. "OIL! To the Nibi!"

The smaller toads that had been biting the cat like creature switched to spitting small amounts of oil on to the Nibi before scattering. Each had left a small amount of oil onto the demon as they jumped away. They were nearly engulfed by the incoming oil from all the larger toads that were within striking distance to the Nibi. Naruto looked at the thing briefly concerned about the masses of small amphibians but all of the smaller toads quickly escaped.

Taking a deep breath while pushing the blade into the ground before forming a blurred set of hand seals, Naruto called out. "GAMAYU ENDAN!" A huge ball of fire engulfed the Nibi. As the flames ignited the oil coating the foul demon it screamed out in agony.

The Nibi began shooting out balls of ghostly fire in all directions. Being set on fire while coated in toad oil had triggered its own deeply buried consciousness. The flames grew more intense as it attempted to burn off the toad oil fire with its own fire. Unfortunately for the Nibi a second wave of toads leaped forward and they all spit up another batch of oil to further intensify the toad oil fire.

Not satisfied Naruto stepped forward and began drawing a massive amount of his chakra and began shaping it into a spiraling vortex of wind spinning around and just barely behind him.

"Hey Nibi you damn cat! Do you think your fire is any match for that of the Kyuubi?" Naruto snarled as his eyes became red and his pupils shifted to slits.

It was obvious that demons could in fact feel fear, even through the odd daze the monster seemed to be in as the Nibi's eyes grew wide from hearing Narutos words. Narutos red eyes seemed to glow as he inhaled deeper than any normal human could and seemed to continue inhaling somehow. The spinning vortex of wind around him took on shades of swirling red color as the demon fox's chakra began to seep into the wind.

"KATON, KYUUBI NO KITSUNE!" Naruto screamed out as he slammed his hands together to form a single tiger seal. Exhaling the impossible amount of air he had somehow inhaled earlier, the air now escaping from his lungs changed to the vicious dark red fire of the Kyuubi. Pushing the vortex of wind he had formed around himself moments ago into the Kyuubi fire, the wind enhanced the demonic fox fire into a bright brilliant red that seemed to almost softly wash over the Nibi. A sudden concussive blast wave rolled off of the boiling mass of flames that knocked thousands of toads of all sizes into the distance.

There was an incredibly loud, intense but surprisingly short scream from the demon as its form wavered for a moment in the wind enhanced Kyuubi fire before the monster simply turned to ash that was blown apart, scattered from the wind, leaving no visible trace of the Nibi itself other than what looked like a dark smudge on the oddly glowing ground. Naruto looked at the ground as the glow began to fade and realized that it was no longer dirt and earth there but rather a nasty looking glass in a large but shallow crater. By the look of the glow the glass was actually rather more extensive than his first glance indicated and the dark smudge that was the only remains of the Nibi was actually deeply buried into the newly formed glass.

Naruto wavered for a moment as his eyes shifted back to blue and he stood before the smoldering shallow but extensive depression where the Nibi once stood that only seemed to grow ever larger as the smoke cleared. Hearing the singing sound of metal on silk he turned to see the massive sword of Gamabunta drawn along with the twin blades of his slightly smaller fellow toad. With a roar the chief toad leaped forward. The chief toads sword sunk into the Sanbi directly over the monsters head. The other large toad had hung back for a moment, giving Gamabunta the first strike. As the Sanbi screamed out in agony and tried to attack Gamabunta the large demolisher toad leaped over the slightly larger chief and plunged each of his blades into the demon as well. Each of the massive blades sunk into the monster beneath its shell, one to each side of Gamabuntas sword. Distracted by the pain of the two additional swords the Sanbi stopped trying to bite Gamabuntas face and began to scream as it tried to twist out of the grasp of the toads. With dozens of toads holding on to it, the demon simply didn't have enough power or leverage to break free.

Several more of the larger toads appeared, with some joining Gamabunta holding his blade and others grabbing the other two swords. With a nod from the chief toad all of the toads helping him hold his blade pulled down while all the other toads pulled and pushed the other two blades up. There was a horrible and massive wet tearing sound while the Sanbi's screams of agony went up several notches. The toads continued to pull as great spurts of greenish black blood began to burst out from between the upper part of the Sanbi's shell and its lower body. As Naruto looked on in shock the toads continued pulling, slowly but surely pulling the foul demons shell from its body.

The Sanbi suddenly snarled and its three tails swung forward knocking a few of the toads off, hurtling them through the air. The remaining toads struggled even harder but their progress in ripping the shell off the demon ground to a halt. After a moments stalemate tendrils of greenish black flesh began to emerge from the torn exposed back of the three tailed demon, reaching up and attaching themselves to the monsters shell. Naruto grimaced as he saw the things tails flail towards his toad allies. Gritting his teeth he drew on the fox. Struggling back and forth as once again his eyes grew red he began to shake as a reddish cloud began to grow around him.

Naruto struggled more with the damn fox than ever before in his life. He needed the things power but he wasn't willing to surrender himself to it. Slowly a tail formed out of the red haze. Naruto raised his head and howled. A second tail began to form and with a massive surge of his will Naruto forced it to fade. With a single tail of fire-like chakra he felt for the first time that his own rage somehow allowed him to retain more than enough control this time and possibly he now had enough power. As he brought the akatsuki's katana forward he began to pour more and more chakra into the blade forming his tainted energy into the element of wind. With a roar he seemed to flow like liquid as he ran up behind the Sanbi. With a hoarse scream of fury he struck the base of the Sanbi's center tail. The center tail fell to the ground and started to whip around in convulsions. Naruto growled in frustration that the other two tails were still attached. They were deeply cut but the large gashes were starting to slowly close. As the one flopping around on the ground grew still Naruto looked to the back of the struggling Sanbi and growled again in frustration as he saw that the damn thing was beginning to grow a new center tail.

Dropping the katana he drew deep from the Kyuubi's power and began to form an intense Rasengan. The blue white orb quickly took on a reddish purple hue as it grew into a huge Odama Rasengan. With a scream of fury Naruto struck the stub of the slowly growing replacement center tail with the massive Rasengan. There was a muffled explosion as Naruto was showered with the greenish black ichor the Sanbi used as blood. The things shell rose up a bit while the demon shook and howled even louder as the shock wave from the Rasengan traveled through its body. The toads had continued to struggle through all of that and managed to pull the shell off a few more feet before a new stalemate was reached. Naruto dropped to all fours and then ran up the back of the Sanbi, his claws tossing off fragments of the things shell as they gouged the things back. As he leaped through the air from the Sanbi to Gamabunta he screamed out.

"OIL! UNDER THE SHELL BOSS!"

"You got it Naruto!" Gamabunta yelled back and nodded to the other toads.

All of the toads that had a proper angle each pulled up a massive burst of oil and spit it into the space between the Sanbi's shell and its body that they had pried open. Narutos hands blurred and once again he called out.

"GAMAYU ENDAN!" Flame burst forth from Naruto, quickly traveling down the spout that Gamabunta was still shooting into the Sanbi to ignite the mass of oil inside. A massive fireball exploded inside the three tails shell. The toads all leaped back, pushed even further through the air from the concussive blast wave. The Sanbi screamed out with a continuous wail of pain and suffering as its shell was ripped clear off of its body. The greenish black blood poured out in torrents, despite many of its 'blood' vessels being seared closed. As the foul creature writhed about, all of its remaining limbs continued flailing, forcing many of the toads to keep their distance. Gamabunta leaped forward again and with an earth shattering crash he swung his sword and struck the Sanbi's head clear from its body.

The smoldering monster shook and twitched for a few moments before collapsing and becoming still. Everyone became quiet and Naruto gave a shudder as the red cloud of Kyuubi chakra faded away and he walked behind the Sanbi's smoking corpse. With a grimace he picked up the dead akatsukis katana.

"Bastards". He softly growled before turning to the body of his master. "Jiraiya." He choked out as he walked up to the body of Jiraiya, before he was over taken with sobbing and collapsed to his knees. For a few moments all of the toads looked on to the two. Naruto gave out a lingering wail before passing out. Gamabunta and Gamakichi hopped over and with sad expressions on their amphibian faces they each carefully picked up the two. Naruto was placed on Gamakichi's back while Gamabunta took Jiraiya. As all the rest of the toads began to disappear leaving nothing but the fading echoes of their croaks of sorrow and farewell, Gamabunta led Gamakichi towards Konoha.

Naruto woke up with a start. He knew instantly from the smell that he was in a hospital. He sighed as he realized that they had searched him and taken away most of his weapons. Rolling his eyes, he pulled a small and tightly rolled piece of paper out of his hair that looked much like a clump of his hair. In moments he had it unrolled and quickly ran his hands through a short set of seals while focusing his chakra onto the paper. With a puff of smoke and a barely audible pop a leg holster unsealed from the paper. He gave its interior a quick glance to see three kunai, a dozen shuriken and a couple of explosive notes. Peeling the cover itself he confirmed that a length of wire and several small tools were hidden as well. Although not satisfied he felt better as he strapped it to his leg. He glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it was 3:00, looking out the window he grumbled softly as he realized it was three a.m. It didn't take long for him to locate his jacket and sandals. Which only induced more grumbling as none of his regular weapons were with his clothing.

In short order he snuck out to the main desk and checked the records. He breathed a sigh of relief to see only four entries from the day before. The small amount of relief was fleeting though as he remembered that Jiraiya was gone as his eyes drifted across his masters name on the list. He scanned the other two entries and was happy to see that both Kurenai and Hinata were expected to be fine by tomorrow but they were scheduled to stay an additional full day for observation. He fought briefly with the idea of checking on them or simply heading home but it was a short bout of inner turmoil as he quickly decided to check on them both. He noted their room numbers and in a few moments he was peeking in on Kurenai. She looked to be peacefully sleeping so he quickly ducked out. Gliding silently through the hall he moved the few doors down to Hinatas room. For some reason that didn't even occur to him he found himself at the foot of her bed. Although most of the chart hanging there was near gibberish to him he was able to understand the pages well enough to know that she was basically fine. A soft sigh of relief escaped from his lips and he moved quietly to the side of the bed. He only stood there for a few moments as the feelings of relief fought with feelings of guilt that he allowed one of his friends to be hurt even if it was nothing serious. Something else lurked in the back of his head that he wasn't fully aware of and for a moment a brief pang of regret surfaced. Scrunching his eyes shut and quickly burying that feeling he turned and headed out of the room.

Hinatas eyes fluttered open just before he exited the room, just long enough for her to see him leave. A moment later she was asleep again and in the morning she wondered if she had dreamed the sight of him leaving her room.

The funeral was a quiet affair, they found a letter in his apartment outlining that was what he wanted. They buried him close to Tsunade, that wish was also in his letter. Naruto couldn't get over the fact that Jiraiya believed that he wasn't coming back from the fight against the Nibi and the Sanbi. On top of all the other shocks he was stunned that Jiraiya had somehow known that they were going to fight before Naruto knew, despite all of the special alarms. He managed to evade all of his concerned friends after the brief memorial, stating that he simply wanted to be alone.

After the funeral he found himself in Jiraiyas home packing up an odd assortment of personal belongings and hundreds upon hundreds of scrolls. Many of which were full from his 'research'. Naruto found several pictures that brought tears to his eyes.

There was a soft pop and a burst of smoke as Gamakichi appeared, filling most of the available space in Jiraiya's living room.

"Hey Naruto." The reddish orange toad called out.

"Gamakichi? But I didn't summon you." Naruto stated, as he looked at his amphibian friend in surprised confusion.

"Nope, special messenger job. I'm just here to tell you that you won't be able to summon us for a while."

"WHAT!?" Naruto yelled out.

"Well with Jiraiya's death there's an unspecified mourning period for us. That usually doesn't effect anyone else who has their name on the contract but you really freaked out all of the elder toads with that mass summoning. Nobody even imagined that such a thing was possible. The elders were rather upset that they themselves were also summoned. They're suspending the contract for a little while as they study the matter."

"Oh." Naruto stated quietly.

"Hey, don't worry about it, just keep it in mind. They'll probably send me to you when the whole thing is cleared up." Gamakichi said with his odd amphibian smile.

"Probably?"

"Well they may summon you to them but I don't think they'll need to do that."

"Oh, o.k. then. There really isn't anything I can do about it anyway right?"

"Nope, although there was a betting pool about whether or not you would try to argue about it." Gamakichi chuckled, although Naruto could tell it was forced.

"Well I hope you win the pool then."

"Can't, everyone else wouldn't let me in on the pool, something about an unfair bias or some nonsense." Gamakichi paused and studied Naruto. "You take care of yourself, strange things are going on in the world and once again they seem centered on you. Try not to need any of us for a little while."

"Hey, I'll be fine, don't forget who I am." Naruto replied as he forced a laugh of his own.

Gamakichi softly put his flipper on Narutos shoulder and the blonde shinobi wrapped his arms around the large toad as well as he could in a strange hug. They broke apart and with a soft pop and burst of smoke, Naruto was alone once more.

He spent that entire evening, well into the night, alone in his former masters home, curled up in a corner in the darkness holding a picture of himself and the toad sage that was roughly ten years old.

Hours later in the shadows of the night a quiet form entered the apartment.

"Naruto?" A soft voice called out.

"Yeah." He answered in a barely audible ragged voice.

"You shouldn't be here alone right now." There was a click as a light switch was pushed lighting the room to reveal Hinata.

"I couldn't leave." He answered as he looked up at her from the floor with bloodshot eyes.

"Well you can't stay either. Come on, I'll take you home." She answered, trying to hide her reaction to the look of utter despair on his face.

Hinata glanced around at the piles of scrolls and pictures that littered the floor. There was a single envelope by itself on a table that had Narutos name scrawled across it in Jiraiya's script. For some reason that single envelope stood out to her. She timidly picked it up and looked it over, surprised to see that it hadn't been opened. Naruto glanced up and saw the envelope in her hands.

"You may as well open it. I couldn't bring myself to earlier, I've been ignoring it all day." He said as he pulled himself up off of the floor.

Hinata simply nodded before she broke the seal and pulled out a single picture with a short note.

'_Naruto, I'm really sorry, I should have given this to you years ago or at least gotten a copy made for you but if you're reading this then I'm not going to need it anymore and it rightfully belongs to you. After all they were your parents. I've got a whole album of these pictures buried in this place somewhere but I'm sorry I haven't seen it since before you were born. I'm sure you'll be able to find it though, once you clean up this disaster. I always thought of your father as the son I never had so in a way that makes you the grandson I never had. I've made you my 'heir' and a lot of stuff will be revealed to you over the next several months but for now I figure this picture would be a good start._

_Jiraiya.'_

Hinata could almost hear Jiraiya's voice in her head as she read the words out loud to Naruto. With a slight tremble she pulled the photo out. She had known for years that the Forth Hokage was Narutos father but she didn't really know anything about his mother. She looked at the picture of three smiling people. Jiraiya stood behind the Yondaime who was standing next to a blue eyed woman who had long bright red hair. All three of them had large happy smiles. Hinata looked to the two bright rings on Narutos parents hands that the picture was centered on. She somehow knew by their smiles and with way they held each others hands in the photo that this must be from the day they had gotten married.

She handed the photo to Naruto who looked completely stunned as he took it and looked at the picture of his smiling parents. Hinata was at a loss for a moment as she saw Narutos shoulders fall and fresh tears formed in his eyes despite his fighting to stop them. She hesitated for a moment but she couldn't just stand there while her closest friend was in pain. She lightly touched his arm briefly and he looked up from the photo to see her standing there with her arms open. He practically fell into her arms as he wrapped his own arms tightly around her and he stopped fighting the tears so they flowed down his face to soak her shoulder. She felt more a little awkward for a moment, mostly because he was several inches taller than she was she tried to tell herself but she still wrapped her arms around him as well.

It took him several minutes to pull himself back together and they both blushed a little as they separated.

"Thanks." He said as he turned and walked over to the eating area that had a sink and washed up.

Hinata didn't trust herself to speak for a moment and she was surprised as she fought the sudden urge to press her fingers together.

"Any time you need me." She finally replied as he finished.

"Damn, it's really late isn't it?" He said as he looked out the window at the darkness.

"It is pretty close to one in the morning. We should get you home." She answered.

"Hey, I almost forgot aren't you supposed to be in the hospital?" He asked.

"They let us both go a few hours ago, Sakura threw something of a fit from what I understand and she left me a note telling me where you were. Oh and Kurenai has already made an appointment to give you our report tomorrow evening." Hinata hesitated for a moment. "I was worried about you when I heard about Jiraiya." She finally said.

"You know the last time I thought he was dead I went into denial. Deep down I refused to believe he was dead and he proved me right. I wasn't there with him when he fought Pein so it was easy to think that he had escaped somehow. I still have no idea how he managed to survive that fight considering the shape he was in and the time it took before the frogs were able to bring him back to Konoha."

"He was an incredible shinobi." Hinata said quietly as she guided him to the door.

He only nodded before giving one final glance around Jiraiya's small apartment and carefully putting the photo of his parents into an inside pocket of his jacket.

They walked together in silence all the way back to his apartment.

"I can't believe you still live here." She said as she followed him into the place he had lived in for as long as she had known him.

"I'm comfortable here." He answered.

She glanced around, she had been here many times before and it still amazed her how much it hadn't changed over the years. She watched him carefully as he took the precious picture out of his jacket and tossed the jacket on the back of a chair. She was worried about him enough that she did something that she never had before despite the fact that she had been here many times, for the first time ever, she followed him into his bedroom.

"Going to tuck me in?" He said with a raised eyebrow and an almost half smile that fought the weariness in his face. It was the closest to a real smile she'd seen on his face since before the attack.

"If I have to, are you sure you're going to be o.k.?"

"I'll be fine." He answered as he took off his shoes, carefully set the picture on the dresser next to his bed and climbed onto the bed fully clothed.

She thought about commenting on him sleeping in his clothes but decided against it. Her eyes drifted over to the collection of pictures on the dresser. There was an old one of 'Team 7' when they were first formed, along with an assortment of most if not all of his friends. She was surprised that there was even a picture of herself sitting at Ichiraku's with him, she hadn't known about that one. There was also a picture of Naruto on a floor, apparently being attacked by three young children while Sasuke looked on in the background holding an infant, all of them, even Sasuke smiling. For some reason she felt a small pang of jealousy looking at that particular picture. She turned to Naruto and smiled, he was already asleep. The emotional and physical exhaustion had finally caught up with him. She sighed softly and looked around the room. Eyeing a few drawers built into the bottom of his bed she pulled one open to reveal a few blankets. She sighed again, this time in relief that she had found what she was looking for on the first shot, without even resorting to using her Byakugan. She was a little uncomfortable with the idea of looking around through all of the drawers in the room. She silently unfolded the blanket and carefully pulled it over him. She suppressed a chuckle, she had tucked him in after all.

She silently left his apartment and headed home, wrestling with feelings she was both happy and sad to be experiencing.

Later, only a few hours after the sun rose, waking up after only six hours of sleep Naruto headed to the memorial stone. A familiar gray haired figure stood before the stone. As Naruto approached, Kakashi called out without turning around.

"Yo."

"Hey." Naruto replied softly as he walked up next to Kakashi.

"So I missed another attack." Kakashi said softly.

"Yeah. Do you think that was intentional on their part?" Naruto asked.

"I don't know. I hate to think that their intelligence is that good. I swung by the area you two stopped those monsters. That green thing already stinks to high heaven and that was one hell of a glass crater that you made. From what I heard you're assumed to have pulled that off after they got Jiraiya. The shadow of the Nibi burned into the glass is pretty disconcerting. If you look closely you can actually see an image of the damn things eyes in the glass. Although that could have been my imagination, just walking on the glass was even getting to me. Somehow some of that things taint or aura is still there." The jounin said in an oddly subdued voice as he turned to study Naruto.

"Yeah, the glass was me, and yeah I pulled that off after they killed Jiraiya." Naruto paused for a moment. "I should have thought that one up sooner. Those bastards seem to have a three month limit before they can use the damn demons. Although I'm hoping that it'll be six this time since we took down two of the things. Everyone else thinks I'm too optimistic. I think we'll pull off some sort of subterfuge in three months though and make it seem that you're on a mission. I want you here if they try to hit us again."

"Sounds good." Kakashi looked at his former student intently. "How are you holding up this time?"

"It was rough last night but Hinata helped me out. I don't know what I'd do without her and Iruka."

"Sorry I haven't been much help myself. You can always talk to me if you need to."

"Thanks, I really appreciate that. Jiraiya left me a picture of my parents. Maybe you could stop by one evening and tell me some more about them."

"That sounds like it would do us both some good. Your father was a great man and your mom was pretty impressive too. I'm sorry we kept so many secrets from you."

"I understand, now more than ever."

They both looked down at the stone, each focused on the new name etched onto its surface. Jiraiya had been a large influence on both of their lives in many ways. Narutos eyes drifted over to Tsunades name for a moment. The number of names that had joined the stone along with hers still bothered him every night. His eyes moved again settling on the names of his parents. Whoever had etched those names had given his fathers family name to his mother on the stone. Naruto wondered how many times had he looked at this stone and read their names without realizing they were his parents. It couldn't have been many, although he had been curious enough to come here a few times and read each name tied to the attack of the demon fox he simply didn't dwell on the past the way Kakashi did. There were no Uzumaki names on the stone so he never thought this would become such a link to his own past. For some reason after he had found out their real names he had only stopped by the stone a few times. He shook his head slightly.

"I've got to go, you wouldn't believe the amount of paperwork I have to go through and I'm sure you'd rather be alone." Naruto spoke out.

"I don't mind but you're right about the paperwork." Kakashi replied.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment and with a slight nod Naruto headed to the tower.

Naruto spent only the morning in the Hokage office. He told Shikamaru and Shizune he was taking the rest of the afternoon off for training. He first spent a fair amount of time at Ichiraku's as soon as he left the tower, finishing off about a dozen bowls of various ramen flavors. Teuchi looked on in concern throughout the meal. It was unusual for Naruto to eat so mechanically, despite the speed at which he devoured the bowls of noodles. It was as if he was merely 'fueling up' and not even his favorite food could distract him. Naruto was in fact on a personal mission of his own and Teuchi's assessment was completely correct, this meal was nothing more than 'fuel' for him.

In a short time Naruto was deep into the training grounds of Konoha. Being acting Hokage he had been able to reserve them without question before he left the tower. He took one of the largest areas on the outermost edge of Konoha's territory. That in itself wasn't unusual, forbidding anyone to enter any of surrounding areas though was. This of course brought about the curiosity of several of his friends. Shikamaru sent out a few messages as soon as Naruto had left and in short order several of his friends had traced his path for the afternoon. Three of those friends were on the very edge of the cordoned off area. Hinata was using her Byakugan to keep an eye on what he was doing. While Kakashi and Sakura waited patiently for Hinata to tell them what was happening.

"He's formed at least a thousand clones. It could be more, there are so many that they are beyond my range even with my focus narrowed." The woman with dark hair whispered.

"Sometimes I regret thinking up this training method up for him." Kakashi whispered.

"Shhh!" Sakura hushed her former sensei, giving him a harsh glare.

"Oh my!" Hinata said softly in shock.

"What?" Sakura whispered.

"He's called up the power of the Kyuubi in all of the clones."

All three of them paled significantly.

"It's surrounding each of them like some sort of cloud. Wait, something else is happening." Hinata hesitated. "They're all taking on a fox like form. There are long ears and each of them has a single tail. It almost looks as if each of them is on fire."

"That's the cloak of the demon fox." Sakura shuddered, she had a lot of nightmares about the demon cloaked form of Naruto many years ago.

"His clones can't usually stand up to the chakra of the Kyuubi for very long, he shouldn't be doing this. We should stop him." Kakashi said.

"I don't think we can." Hinata answered.

After a short argument they decided to leave things be as long as Naruto didn't go past a single tailed state. For several hours the three stayed there with Hinata checking on Naruto every few minutes with her Byakugan and relaying what she saw to the others.

They spent the rest of the afternoon there waiting for him to finish. Finally there was a soft sigh of relief from Hinata.

"He's released the demons cloak and the clones are dispersing. Looks like he's heading out."

The others looked away from her and towards the area Naruto had been working in. In a short amount of time Naruto appeared before them. He looked pretty beat up and he was trembling as he walked up. There was a short look of disapproval on his face once he realized they were there.

"Checking up on me?" Naruto asked.

"Of course, we are you friends." Kakashi replied as both young women looked down and blushed slightly.

"Naruto you shouldn't be doing such things, your body will..." Sakura started to say before Naruto cut her off.

"I think we already had this conversation years ago. I know my body better than anyone." He glared at Sakura for a moment before a look of sadness crossed his face. "Listen, I know you're all worried but this is something I have to do."

Naruto turned, obviously unsteady and started to walk away. Sakura started to turn after him but Kakashi grabbed her shoulder and held her back.

"He likely won't listen to you." He said softly to Sakura before turning to Hinata. "He probably won't listen to you either if you try to get him to stop but make sure he eats something soon. That clone training technique takes a lot out of him. I can't imagine what kind of mental and physical stress he's put himself under combining that type of training with utilizing the chakra of the Kyuubi but the past four and a half hours for him was roughly the equivalent of anyone else training for nearly a years worth of 12 hour days without a break."

Hinata merely nodded before running after Naruto. She closed the short distance in mere moments and grabbed his arm helping steady him. He eyed her suspiciously for a second.

"Come on, we're going to Ichiraku's." Hinata said softly as she led him back to the village.

Sakura and Kakashi stood there together as their friends walked off.

"Is he going to be o.k.?" The pink haired young woman finally asked.

"I have no idea. I don't think any shinobi throughout all of history has done what he seems to be attempting. At the very least it will most likely shorten his life."

"Than you know what he is doing?"

"I'm not sure but I think he's trying to gain more control of the Kyuubi's power. If not that he's trying to acclimate himself to it so he can use more of it without losing himself and possibly lessen the damage it does to him." Kakashi answered in a very subdued voice.

"To willingly use the Kyuubi's chakra like that after all these years…" Sakura paused. "He wasn't this desperate or worried when we were trying to bring Sasuke back or when we focused on the Akatsuki."

"I think he's worried about the more powerful tailed beasts. So far we've only seen the weaker of the great demon lords." Kakashi replied, after which they both fell silent.

After a few hours at Ichiraku's where Naruto completely stuffed himself on ramen he and Hinata headed to the tower. She only had a single bowl herself and to Narutos relief she didn't say anything about his training, it had been a pretty quiet meal in fact. It didn't take long before he was back in the Hokages office. He was a bit surprised to see Kurenai and Shino waiting for them though.

A few minutes later was sitting behind the desk himself stunned at what he just heard, as Kurenai, Hinata, Shino and the nervous young medic who had been assigned to their team after Kiba's death stood before him.

"Are you absolutely certain?" He asked looking at Kurenai as he tried to accept what she had told him.

"Yes. Not only did I see the eyes myself but it is one of the few ways both myself and Hinata could both be fooled by a genjutsu. Whoever it was had the Sharingan."

"Iwana!" Naruto called out.

The older chuunin bustled in and quickly stood at attention.

"Get Kakashi and Sasuke here immediately! Also send someone into the combat records and get me a list of any members of the Uchiha clan that were listed missing in action. Also send a messenger to the Hyuga estate and request that Lord Hiashi come here immediately if at all possible. Tell him it is a matter of utmost urgency." Naruto turned to Kurenai. "I'd like you to hold off on any more until all of the others arrive or we get word that Lord Hiashi isn't coming."

The chuunin merely nodded and vanished as Naruto spoke to Kurenai.

The office became silent. Naruto sat at the desk deep in thought and the others didn't want to disturb him.

A/N - well I've got a few repetitive themes in my stories with Naruto's feelings and pictures but that's just the way I see things happening in these situations. I'll be working on '20th' and 'Fury' before I get back to this one. I hope anyone reading this is enjoying it despite its darker story, it'll only get worse.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N - hey one of the characters in this chapter is actually mine, Minoru Takashima is one I thought up although the name is a borrowed mixture from elsewhere, everything else belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and/or Shonen Jump anything 'Naruto' that I own is the commercially purchased stuff, my Naruto Manga collection is complete up to Volume 30 and I own the first four uncut boxed DVD sets.

Ch. 3

Three months later.

They had discovered nothing more about the mysterious Sharingan user. Neither Kurenai or Hinata had seen the mystery person wearing a hia-ate so they didn't even know if this person was part of a hidden village or even if they were male or female. Going over reports from the past several decades had given them nothing. Sure there were a few cases where a Uchiha was missing in action but there were few follow ups on those that indicated any of them survived. The whole thing had put Sasuke on edge to a degree not seen before. One positive thing about the whole mess was that it had eased the tension between Naruto and the Uchiha family. One of the possibilities that they had decided was most likely was that one hostile village had somehow acquired a half breed Uchiha through some brothel years ago and had been developing their own Sharingan. They had no intelligence pointing to that but Shikamaru thought it was the most likely scenario. Worried about the possible abduction of their children Sakura had convinced Sasuke to hire a standing guard of Anbu to watch the children. Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi all thought she was over reacting considering the power of herself and her husband but none of them were about to argue with her. Despite everything things in Konoha fell back into a relative sense of normalcy even though most everyone was expecting an attack soon.

--ooo--

The Land of Wind, outside of Sunagakure no Sato

--ooo--

The heat was oppressive as the wind blew softly Gaara stood at the gate of Suna alone. There was a dull thudding sound that was slowly getting louder and louder as a cloud of sand approached.

"Shukaku." Gaara said softly. "Good, I was hoping their perverse sense of humor would cause them to make that mistake."

Temari came running up to her younger brother. "You can't face that thing alone!"

"I am the only one of Suna who can face Shukaku at all." Gaara's attention shifted to the far right of the approaching demon. "Besides, I will not be alone. Go Temari, help with the evacuation, you won't be able to help us here."

"Us? What do you mean…" Her voice fell silent as she began to sense a massive power akin to her own chakras wind nature quickly approaching. She concentrated and realized that there was also an insane amount of distorted elemental fire wrapped up in the wind of what ever it was. As she looked to the same spot her brother was concentrating on she gasped as she saw what looked like a horizontal tornado heading directly for them. As it grew closer and closer she could see it had what looked like a core of dark red fire that actually preceded the tornado by just a bit.

Temari stood there in shock as she began to see there was a figure running within the red flames. As it grew closer she began to see it as a flaming running fox. A few seconds later she could make out that it was Naruto, running on all fours, enveloped by a writhing fox shaped bubble of energy that actually had a single tail. The horizontal tornado that seemed to be pushing him collapsed and faded away a few hundred meters away, leaving the red shroud. He came skidding to a quick stop before them and with a strange shake while he stood up, he shrugged off the red energy. As it dissipated she saw his eyes shift from red with slit pupils to the brilliant blue she was more familiar with. She looked closer and gasped again seeing that he had the hat of the Leaf villages Hokage on his back.

"I see that congratulations are in order." Gaara looked to his first friend. "I'm sorry for the price though."

"She died saving our village. I wish things could have been different, she was talking about retiring and had already submitted my name as her chosen successor when those bastards sent the Yonbi to attack Konoha. In fact she sent me off with Jiraiya to get me out of the village while she debated with the village council about me becoming Hokage. It would have been different if I had been there. She managed to take the damn thing with her when she went though." Narutos face colored as he clenched his fists, it had been nearly six months since Tsunades death and he still had trouble suppressing his anger about it. "They sent the Nibi and Sanbi next. Jiraiya and I took them on." Narutos voice dropped. "He's gone now too but so are the Nibi and Sanbi."

"I guess they decided to destroy Suna after that then." Gaara said.

"Not if we have anything to say about it." Naruto finally smiled as he clasped his friends shoulder.

There was something very dark about that smile that caused Temari to pale slightly. This was a side to Naruto that she had only glimpsed at when he fought Gaara all those years ago.

"So that means they only have five demons now?" Gaara asked.

"Possibly four, we suspect they may have lost the Hachibi. Doesn't matter, it's going to be one less soon." Narutos eyes shifted back to slit red as he glared at the approaching monster.

Gaara took off the hat of the Kazekage and handed it to Temari. He then shrugged off the blue and white robes and gave them to her as well, leaving him in his regular tans and reds. Naruto took off the Hokage hat and giving it a sad look he glanced to Temari and handed it to her as well.

"I'll take good care of it." She reassured him and he simply nodded in reply.

"Temari." Gaara nearly whispered.

"Yes, I know, I'll go now, I'm sorry." She gave a quick nod and hurried back through the passageway.

Temari ran through the eerily empty streets of Suna, rapidly approaching A-block where she met Kankurou and Baki. Finally some activity, she breathed a sigh of relief as she took note of the Suna medical corps gathering up in preparations to erecting a shield barrier. It certainly wouldn't stop the demon but it might give the fleeing people more time, even if it were only a few seconds. Baki noticed the red and white hat she held along with the Kazekage robes.

"The Hokage?"

"Yes, it's Naruto."

"So the rumors were true, Tsunade did put his name up." Kankurou scowled, since these new akatsuki had gone on the offensive, contact with the other hidden villages had been mostly cut off from one another, even the news as to who had replaced Tsunade had never been confirmed over the past several months.

"I can't believe that the Hidden Leaf's council would allow the Hokage to come to help us in a time like this." Baki muttered.

"It's Naruto, I doubt he bothered to even ask. I think it's safe to say that he views Gaara as a brother. It'd take more than a village council and a few demons to stop him from helping Gaara." Temari said as she looked at the two hats she held. "Besides he said that Konoha has destroyed the Nibi, Sanbi and Yonbi somehow. They probably have a bit of breathing room. Although it cost them Tsunade and Jiraiya."

"So there may be hope for us after all." Baki said softly. "If those three are gone, which did they send to fight us?"

"Shukaku." Temari shuddered as the other two paled.

"So how much chakra of your own do you have since those bastards pulled that thing out of you anyway." Naruto asked as the two of them waited for Shukaku to get closer.

"I'd say roughly quadruple that of a powerful jounin. Although I try to be conservative and generally I try not to use too much at a time. It doesn't replenish as quickly as I would like."

"Do you have the same chakra type as Shukaku too?"

"Of course, don't you share the same chakra as the Kyuubi?"

"Actually no, the Kyuubi leans towards fire, my own is wind."

"That's interesting."

"Well since I can tap into the Kyuubi, I guess I should take the first shot then."

"As you wish." Gaara grimaced, he didn't care who struck first, he knew that he was the one who would strike last in this battle.

The billowing cloud of dust slowed to a stop a few hundred meters away. As the dust settled they could see the towering form of Shukaku looking down at them despite the distance between them.

"Gaara of the desert and Uzumaki Naruto." The thing let out a roar of laughter. "Interesting, very interesting." It continued to laugh.

"Laugh all you want you whacked out raccoon. The Yonbi, Sanbi and Nibi are all gone now and you're going to be next." Naruto yelled at the monster

Shukaku laughed even harder at that. "While it may be true that you defeated those others but you have run out of sannin to help you haven't you? I don't see that damn frog either. Is it dead too?" The demon continued to laugh.

"That's not true is it Naruto?" Gaara asked his eyes growing slightly wider.

"No but I can't summon any frogs right now. I kind of overdid it last time and they're claiming there's some sort of mourning they have to go through over losing Jiraiya. Although I think that's bullshit."

"Overdid it?"

"Yeah, I think I summoned too many toads when we destroyed the Sanbi and Nibi and that really freaked them out so they're using that and Jiraiya's death as an excuse to suspend the summoning contract until they figure out how to deal with what I did."

"How many is too many?"

"I don't know, I think it was all of them."

"All of them?" Gaara's eyes grew slightly larger before whispering. "Damn."

"Enough talk, it's time I killed you both and destroyed this village." Shukaku suddenly roared and moved forward.

Naruto was suddenly enveloped within the single tail form chakra shroud. Calling up a massive amount of chakra he quickly formed a reddish purple Rasengan in each hand. He concentrated further and white blades of wind began to form on each spiraling sphere of energy, causing a massive scream like sound to emanate from each of the spinning spheres. Further concentrating, an odd distortion of visible wind appeared all along each of his arms. With a roar of his own he blurred forward, almost instantly enveloped within that new horizontal tornado he had used when he first arrived. As he closed in on Shukaku the massive form shifted sideways much faster than its bulk should have allowed. Looking as if the form of wind and fire-like chakra was going to miss, Naruto suddenly twisted nearly ninety degrees straight up, catching Shukaku's right arm with the double Rasen-Shuriken. Much like the time he faced Shukaku years ago with Gamabunta the demons arm was severed and the monster screamed out. Again like in the past it fell to the ground and began to turn into sand. The wind driven Naruto was hurled into the distance at an odd angle due to the force of the impact and the wind pushing him.

Not one to flinch from the fight Gaara's hands blurred through a few seals. "Tajuu Shukaku no Houtou." He called out as he raised his arms up and several dozen sand spears formed.

With a wave they went flying through the air and impacted Shukaku. The demon screamed for a moment but quickly shrugged it off and started laughing again. Gaara's eyes narrowed and his anger grew. Off in the distance he saw Naruto come bounding back along the ground again with another double Rasen-Shuriken tornado driven attack. This time though when the monster somehow dodged to the side, its tail swung forward in a blur, impacting Naruto just as the red shrouded ninja came abreast of the monster. His attacks and driving wind collapsed as the impact hurled him towards Gaara. Naruto skidded to a halt not quite at Gaara's feet and quickly bounced to his feet, spitting sand.

"Damn I was hoping to get in at least another good hit with that attack." He growled. "I'd rather not go any further with any more tails."

"More tails?" Gaara asked.

"Yeah, the more tails, the more power but the price is that the more Kyuubi takes over." Naruto scowled at Shukaku. "Even with all the work I've been doing these past few months, I'd be nearly as dangerous to those around me as that damn thing is once I hit four or more."

Neither of the two noticed a small form creeping along the battlements above as it kept to the shadows. They were too focused on the once again approaching demon.

"Got any other ideas?" Naruto asked.

"Not at this time or at least not that I wish to use right now. Most of my attacks are sand based and they're just not as effective against Shukaku. We need to wear it down some more before I can be certain that the special attack that I have prepared will be completely effective." Gaara replied.

"O.K., I've got a few more really good attacks that should help here."

Naruto gathered a massive amount of chakra within himself and concentrated it in his upper chest. Most everything he had read and been taught had told him these types of jutsu should begin by pushing his chakra into his hara near his naval but trial and error had shown that collecting his energy just above his heart made this particular jutsu much more effective for some unknown reason. He closed his eyes and a soft blue light began to emanate from his chest. As the pale blue glow started to spread he began a series of hand seals. Gaara grew slightly uneasy as the number of hand seals steadily increased and the sand demon closed in on them.

"Fuuton: Three dancing sisters of the winds no jutsu." Naruto whispered as he finished the lengthy set of hand seals and slammed his hands into the ground. Gaara's eyes widened as the blue light shimmered along his arms as if it were water that looked to be flowing into the ground.

"You put a wind element attack into the ground?" Gaara asked.

"Later!" Naruto hissed as his eyes narrowed in concentration.

Gaara could not only see the shifting sands ripple towards Shukaku but he could feel the surge of power through his feet as it flowed to the demon. There was an incredible roar as what looked like three pillars of sand erupted around the sand demon. The tan pillars seemed to shed their light brown color almost immediately Shukaku screamed as the wind driven sand cut into the monster in thousands of places. It quickly became obvious that the three pillars were actually tornados and the earlier roar intensified. Gaara looked back and forth from the wind attack to Naruto as the three tornados began to circle Shukaku and grow even louder. The monster screamed again as the three swirling masses of wind slammed into him again and again. Gaara realized that Naruto was actually forcing the jutsu to drive the foul creature back away from Suna. Just as the Kazekage began to breath a little easier though the attack collapsed with one final impact that managed to knock the massive demonic form of sand down to the ground.

"Yeah, I know I pumped an air element attack into the ground but trust me for that particular attack it's actually adds to the destructive capability of the jutsu to run the air energy through another medium first. You ought to see it when I pull that one off when I've got a lot of water. Although oddly enough I'm having trouble using it with fire, keeps blowing the flames out." Naruto said with a large smile.

The two Kages looked on and both frowned at the same time, oddly mirroring each other in a way that would be funny if it had happened under different circumstances, the demon was getting back to its feet far quicker than they both liked.

"Got any more good attacks?" Gaara asked.

"I've got one more attack that won't wipe me out completely anyway." Naruto said as the fox shroud popped into existence around him and he rushed off towards the monster again.

As Naruto ran forward on all fours again the red chakra shroud intensified and grew brighter. Gaara was puzzled as streaks of blue began to appear just before the vortex of wind formed around his friend again, obscuring the red chakra with the white energy of the wind. About 20 meters away from the demon Naruto made a hard left turn and began circling the monster with a clockwise rotation. Naruto pumped more and more wind energy into the massive spiral and a few seconds it was impossible to tell exactly where he was. Shukaku lunged out with its remaining arm and lost the tips of its claws to the massive vortex. Naruto began to gradually contract the circle and it got faster and faster. The wall of wind also began to grow taller as it grew faster. In a short time the demon couldn't be seen. As the wall constricted closer and closer the monster began to scream in pain once again as the wind began to tear at it. As the winds increased another roar of wind could be heard. This one was somehow deeper than the roar that accompanied his earlier attack and quickly grew louder as well. Shukaku wrapped itself in something of a ball and hardened its skin to protect itself from the tearing wind. Naruto simply poured more and more power into the massive vortex and Gaara's mouth dropped open slightly as tinges of red appeared in the gusts and it began to look very much like a tremendous tornado that was on fire. Suddenly Shukaku was torn from the ground and ever so slowly lifted into the air. The demon began to spin in the wind as its altitude increased. Higher and higher the huge monster was pushed into the air. It must have been several hundred meters up when the red flaming streak of Naruto peeled off from the base of the tornado and practically flew to Gaaras side.

The flaming tornado began to quickly dissipate as the Kyuubi shroud around Naruto faded as well and he leaned down to grab his knees while he panted, trying to catch his breath. Gaara performed a blur of hand seals and waved his right arm up. As Shukaku fell, a dozen or so of roughly two meter wide spikes that were easily twenty meters high each, rose up from the ground beneath the demon. With a cross wave of his left arm the spikes suddenly darkened as they took on the aspect of steel. Shukaku twisted in the air, unfurling from the distorted ball back to its true form, still minus its right arm though. It started to laugh at its two opponents as it fell and completely missed the fact that it was falling onto the massive spikes. Its laughter quickly turned to howls of agony as it crashed into the ground with a sick thud, impaled on the spears. Even though it still continued to scream in pain it was quickly obvious to Gaara and Naruto that it was working itself free.

"Damn that thing." Naruto cursed.

"It would help greatly if it were weakened some more Naruto. Can you do that?"

"Yeah." Naruto grimaced as he steeled himself, took a deep breath and screaming in pain himself he again took on the Kyuubi shroud of chakra with a single tail once more.

Concentrating he again formed two of the reddish purple, white bladed Rasen-Shurikens. Again he surged forward with his wind driven attack towards the impaled demon. With a quick jump to his right he skirted the very edge of the monsters base and disappeared behind it. There was a loud explosion from the base of the things tail. The demons screams went up a notch or two as a red filled tornado like streak appeared, flowing over its head. The monster tried to strike at Naruto as he ran over its head and between its eyes as its tail fell to the ground and began to turn into sand. Naruto proved to be the quicker of the two and the demon struck itself in the face as he leaped off its nose, bounded back to the ground and within moments returned to Gaaras side.

Naruto was breathing hard and sweating profusely as the shroud disappeared. He staggered a bit as he came to a complete stop and looked to Gaara.

"Was that enough?" Naruto asked as the sweat soaked his clothes.

Gaara reached out with his senses. "Yes its demise is guaranteed now, but you need to keep it occupied for a bit longer. I could really use some time."

"You got it." Naruto concentrated and again he screamed out, this time in agony as the red Kyuubi shroud enveloped him again. The first tail formed and a second began to appear as well. "No...you…don't…you…bastard." Naruto gritted his teeth and screamed even louder forcing the second tail to shrink and disappear through the sheer force of his will.

He staggered a bit more despite the boost provided by the Kyuubi chakra shroud but shook it off and ran forward again as Shukaku freed itself from the last of the spikes. Naruto began to weave around near the base of the monster, taunting it and dodging away as it struck out again and again with its remaining hand. Gaara was surprised to see Naruto wave a hand and fire off a tremendous blast of air that impacted Shukaku. Naruto formed a single tiger seal and the dark red Kyuubi fire flowed forth and hit the raccoon demon, causing another howl of pain and rage to echo across the vast desert. Narutos hands blurred as the red demon fox cloak enclosing him took on highlights of blue. Again dark red Kyuubi fire lanced out. This time though Naruto waved his hand again and the dark red fire shifted to a bright nearly glowing red as the wind merged with the demons fire. Shukaku screamed out and the monsters eyes darkened in anger. The demon suddenly inhaled deeply and started hurling massive compressed air blasts towards the dodging Naruto.

Gaara sat himself on the ground and began to gather a massive amount of his chakra. He pulled out a scroll and unrolled it before him, biting his thumb and smearing his blood on the writing. He then began a long series of hand seals.

'_A little longer Naruto.'_ He thought as he continued with more and more hand seals. Minutes seemed to pass until he made a final hand seal. Gaara called out his own name and Shukaku's at the same time that the demon managed to actually score a glancing hit on Naruto, sending him bouncing off into the distance. A blinding shaft of light appeared between Gaara and Shukaku and the air was once again filled with screams of pain, this time from both of the demon and the Kazekage. The demon howled and thrashed as Gaara screamed back in defiance and focusing his own will, he poured every last bit of his chakra into the jutsu. With a blinding flash Shukaku appeared to slowly disintegrate as its form flowed into and through the shaft of light into Gaara. The whole process seemed to take hours.

Naruto once again appeared near Gaara, completely covered with sand. He shook himself causing the fox shroud to vanish just as the last of the light that had connected Gaara to Shukaku faded away along with the demon. Gaara collapsed into a seated position on the ground completely exhausted.

"ALRIGHT!" Naruto yelled out just before he fell flat on his back onto the ground breathing heavily while his sweat dripped off of his face leaving streaks in the coating of sand before soaking into the ground beneath him, leaving a small damp circle in the sand. "Man it's a good thing you pulled that off, I didn't have much left. Welcome back to the Jinchuuriki club!" He gasped out with one of his huge smiles as he grasped his friends hands and Gaara helped him to sit up.

"It's only temporary Naruto." Gaara said sadly as they sat looking at each other.

"Temporary? What do you mean?"

"The only ways I could find to permanently seal a greater demon in someone requires it to happen at a very early age, preferably close to the birth of that person. Certain objects can sometimes be used but rarely for more than a few years and generally once one of the tailed beasts has been sealed into a non-living object it's nearly impossible to pull that off again once it has been freed. Since I held Shukaku before I could not only hold it again but I could bind my soul to the demon. In fact I am likely the only adult that could have a greater demon sealed within them without being killed instantly. Since it was Shukaku all of that was even easier for me. Although I say easier that is only because of the preparations I've been making since the second attack on Konoha. Even though I held Shukaku before, because I was an adult I was pouring massive amounts of my chakra into that scroll for more than a month to have enough to pull that off. It also took nearly a month prior to that to research it and write it out. Unfortunately like I said this seal is temporary. Even though Shukaku is completely bound to my life and any external forces on my life, it won't take long for it to consume my mind and soul from within. That would not only free it from the soul binding but it would be free from the new seal." Gaara pulled out a short wakizashi.

"NO! There has to be another way!" Naruto demanded as he struggled to stand up from his sitting position.

"Naruto we are both Kage's you know that this is often the price people in our position must pay in order to protect those we care for. Thanks to you I was able to discover my own precious people. Would you do any differently."

"No." Naruto whispered as he looked to the ground.

"GAARA-KUN!" A feminine voice suddenly called out.

"Matsuri?" Gaara looked up as the small shadow from earlier appeared above them and leaped down to show a brown haired young woman.

"Gaara, you can't!" She reached out and grabbed the short blade as tears flowed from her eyes.

"Matsuri. You, you are not supposed to be here. You should be helping with the evacuation, besides." Gaara paused as he looked sadly at the young woman. "I have to. It is the only way to finally destroy Shukaku and save the village."

"But I need you!" She cried out as the tears began to flow even more from her eyes. "Don't you see how much I need you? I've waited ten years for you! You can't leave me now!" The young woman cried out.

"I am sorry." He took his free hand and softly caressed her cheek. "I wish things could be different, especially for you but once I bound the demon to myself I sealed my own fate. I have to do this or that thing will get free and my death would be for nothing."

"B-but, but… I love you Gaara. We are supposed to, supposed to…" Matsuri couldn't continue as she fell to her knees and broke down sobbing as she realized her precious and secret dreams had been torn away from her and shattered into uncountable pieces. Minutes passed and the young woman continued to sob uncontrollably. "I-I…I wanted your children!" She finally cried out between sobs as she weakly pounded Gaara's chest with her fists. "I wanted you! You were supposed to be mine! It's not fair! We were made for each other and you know it!" The young woman's voice got slightly louder with each word.

"Matsuri, I was yours." Gaara said softly as he closed his eyes and fought to hold back his own tears. He slowly but firmly pulled her hands away from the blade.

"Gaara, wait." Naruto said forcefully.

"What?"

"Just how much time do you have before it consumes you?"

"I don't know."

"It's not going to happen instantly is it?"

"No but the longer we wait the greater the risk."

"Damn it! Can you at least guess?"

"For me…and thanks to your help wearing it down so much…maybe several weeks. Possibly even a couple of months if I am really lucky."

"Would you know if it were getting close?"

"Certainly."

"Then you could at least try to give Matsuri a child couldn't you?"

The two sand ninja stared at Naruto completely shocked.

"That wouldn't be proper Naruto." Gaara said softly and this time a tear escaped from his control and rolled down his cheek.

"So marry her then! Damn! At least talk to her about it! I would think having your child is better than not having one."

"Naruto, it's more than that." He looked down at the still shaking Matsuri. "I wouldn't want her to raise our child alone."

"Please Gaara?" Matsuri asked as she looked to him through tear filled eyes.

There was a long moment of silence.

"It seems I have no choice." Gaara's heart melted, he never told anyone but despite pushing off her advances for roughly a decade, he never was able to really resist Matsuri.

He put the blade away and Matsuri flowed into his arms knocking him over into the sand.

"Matsuri, please." Gaara begged softly.

She blushed slightly as she practically jumped off of Gaara and with her help the two young men were shortly able to stand, granted they were rather wobbly. The three of them slowly staggered back to the center of Suna. Both Gaara and Naruto on the verge of collapsing and both leaned heavily on Matsuri for the walk. It seemed to be forever before they finally reached the edge of the protected area to be greeted by Baki. He quickly called for an entire medical team to look at the two Kage's.

Temari and Kankurou quickly appeared and before either of them knew what was going on they were surrounded be a crowd of sand shinobi. The babble of voices got louder and louder.

"YES!" Gaara finally yelled out, shocking everyone into silence. Their Kazekage never raised his voice. "The Akatsuki have failed. They sent Shukaku to destroy us but with the help of my friend the Hokage here, it was defeated."

The crowd roared exuberantly. Temari quietly handed Naruto the hat of the Hokage and gave the hat of the Kazekage to Gaara. They each put on their hats and the cheering got even louder.

Gaara raised his right hand, his left was firmly in the grasp of Matsuri, the crowd grew quiet. "Unfortunately there is a heavy price for our victory."

Ripples of denial flowed through the crowd. A few of them close to Naruto suddenly backed away in fear of the Hokage as they saw him turn from their leader. Narutos eyes were on the very edge of overflowing with tears and a few of the Suna villagers spotted that his eyes had turned a glowing red before Naruto squeezed them tightly closed and tilted his head to face the ground. The fact that he had clenched his hands into fists and a small amount of blood appeared between his fingers while his fists began to just barely shake, didn't help the Suna villagers that had glimpsed his barely concealed anger.

"Gaara?" Baki asked as he looked to his leader.

"In order to insure the safety of the village I will have to sacrifice my own life shortly. I was able to bind Shukaku back within myself but this new seal is only temporary and in order to destroy the demon before it consumes me and escapes, I will have to take my own life. Please accept this as it was the only way to insure our victory today. I don't know how much time I have with you all but we are hoping for several weeks, perhaps even a couple of months." Gaara looked down at Matsuri. "In that time though, I will be marrying Matsuri here, so please try to make our last weeks together happy ones."

The next few days were hectic to say the least. With the defeat and destruction of yet another one of their demons the akatsuki seemed to pause. The villages even managed to re-establish regular communication lines. Naruto was hoping that they would have at least another three months before once again one of the damn things was again set loose upon the world. Suna was able to get one of their few remaining messenger birds through to Konoha and a small delegation was sent that managed to arrive before the wedding. Naruto had added a note of his own with some detailed instructions. Shikamaru led the delegation that arrived from Konoha four days later and he quietly informed Naruto that many people were upset at his sudden departure but since another demon was destroyed and Suna saved it was generally accepted that Naruto wasn't going to catch much flack from the Leaf council about it.

"Man Naruto you're such a headache. Even if the council is at least putting up the front of taking this in stride, you've pissed off Kakashi to no end. I can't believe you just left a note making him deputy Hokage."

"I don't care about any of that, keep complaining and I'll make you deputy Hokage next time. Did you find the person I asked for in my note?" Naruto asked as Shikamaru paled before he sighed.

"Yeah, that's why it took us an additional day to get here. One Minoru Takashima, direct from Konoha. Although I'd say he's lost it, gone soft in the head years ago probably. He's really old, I mean **really** old." Shikamaru said as he pointed to an ornate sedan chair.

Naruto walked over, waved the four chuunin off that had been switching the chair between themselves for the trip and peeled back a curtain to reveal a heavily wrinkled old man sleeping in the chair.

"Hey old man!" Naruto called out.

He peered at the sleeping man and realized that of all the times he had used that phrase over the years nobody had ever even come close to looking as old as this guy. Sandaime Sarutobi, heck even that guy Ebizou here in Suna looked younger than this guy by a wide margin.

"What? Are we there yet? You punk kids better not've forgotten my dango!" The old man grumbled as he opened one eye and glowered at Naruto.

"Yeah, yeah you're here. You're the guy who taught Jiraiya Fuuinjutsu right?" Naruto asked impatiently.

At that the old man opened his other eye and peered intently at Naruto. The word Fuuinjutsu seemed to actually brighten the mans eyes and years, if not decades, seemed to somehow fall away from the old man as he sat up straighter.

"Ah, you're Namikaze's kid, ain't ya, newest Hokage and all that. Taught your pop a thing or two as well I did. 'Though that one was one of a kind and came up with stuff I didn't even think was possible. I've even taught Sarutobi and Tsunade a couple of things. Come to think of it, you're the only Hokage I haven't taught any Fuuinjutsu to. So wadda ya want? My lessons ain't cheap and I don't see any dango. I was told something about a demon. I'd love to see what your pop Namikaze came up with, never did get a good look at you." The old mans eyes drifted to Narutos stomach with a slight amount of unease evident.

"Not me and knock it off with the Namikaze stuff, it's Uzumaki." Naruto practically hissed at the old man.

"Oh yeah, forgot about that, gave you Kushina's name didn't they. Yep, you definitely got plenty of her traits."

"Damn it old man, you're about 20 years too late to be telling me anything about my family. This isn't the time or place. I read a note from Tsunade about you, everyone thinks you're senile but that's a lie isn't it, Jiraiya was the last person you talked to sanely that wasn't a Hokage. I need you to look over my friend Gaara."

The old main looked hurt for a moment and seemed to deflate a bit as his shoulders sagged.

"Sorry kid, I'm almost at hundred and five years now, been around a little too long I sometimes think." The old man replied quietly as he looked down.

"Don't apologize, I don't really care about the whole secret thing to tell the truth and would love to hear more. In private though, there are political issues to this day about me and my dad." Naruto said softly.

Naruto glanced up to see Temari walking up to greet Shikamaru.

"Oi Temari!" Naruto called out while waving.

"Naruto? You're here already? I thought you were still back at Gaara's office." She asked looking slightly puzzled.

"Yeah, yeah I get around pretty quickly, could you ask Gaara to meet me over at my suite?"

"Sure." She answered as she latched on to Shikamaru and dragged him off towards the Kazekage's office.

Naruto called the chuunin back, they had drifted over to the Anbu squad that had accompanied them to guard the old man. Naruto was sure he'd have to answer some pointed questions from Shikamaru later about all of this but he was relieved that his old friend had followed his instructions. Even if it was likely that it didn't make much sense to post an Anbu guard on a senile old man. As Shikamaru and Temari disappeared he led the others to the suites of rooms Suna had assigned to them.

"I heard about the rest of your old team and I'm sorry for your loss." Temari said softly and she gave Shikamaru's arm a tender squeeze as they walked.

Shikamaru grunted almost inaudibly as he scowled for a moment as the pain flared for a moment. Temari felt his whole body tense and she began to release him to put some distance between them.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to remind you." She said softly.

"Temari, wait." He stopped for a moment and took her hand. "You've been a good friend for a long time. I don't want to push you away."

"As if you could if I didn't want you too." She smiled in her familiar teasing way, although now there was a tone of tenderness in her smile for him and her fingers interlaced with his as they continued walking.

"Tell me about the fight, Naruto didn't say anything about what happened other than Gaara beat Shukaku but that doing so was going to kill him."

"Really? I would have thought that he would have been bragging about the fight considering that he's the reason why Gaara was able to seal Shukaku as easily as he did. I always thought he was a bit of a loud mouth braggart."

"Yeah well Naruto is really weird like that. If it's something meaningless or when he's posturing before a fight you can't shut him up but every single time he does something incredible it's almost impossible to get him to say anything about it afterwards. Hell most of Konoha thought that Sasuke was the one who beat Gaara all those years ago. Naruto didn't even tell Sakura that it was really him that really defeated Gaara."

"Wait, you're telling me that he didn't even tell her that he saved her life? I thought he was madly in love with her all those years ago. I'm having trouble believing that he didn't try to impress her at least about that fact."

"Nah, he still won't tell her about it to this day. In fact I think the only reason why she knows the truth was because she tried to thank Sasuke for saving her from Gaara and Sasuke told her it was Naruto."

"Damn, that's surprising."

"The only people he's ever given halfway accurate assessments of what he does is Iruka, our old academy sensei, probably Jiraiya before he died and maybe Hyuga Hinata. Although even with Iruka he downplays his part in things and nobody can get Hinata to say anything about what he tells her. Other than those people though, pretty much the only times he really talks about the big meaningful fights he's gotten in is when he learns something new and then he twists everything he's done around whatever new move he's learned. Not everybody knows this but Naruto is the one who was responsible for convincing Tsunade to return to Konoha and become the fifth Hokage. If you asked him though all he'd ever do was complain about how she wasn't fit to be Hokage then or go on and on about the Rasengan. I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk so much about a jutsu and yet not actually say anything meaningful about it. He fought Sasuke that time you guys saved our asses from those sound freaks but nobody ever knew what really happened until Sasuke returned to Konoha. All Naruto would admit to was that they got into a fight and Sasuke got away. I read the investigative report and that fight was comparable in many ways to the time he fought Gaara. In fact considering that he didn't summon any frogs when he fought Sasuke the analysts figure that Naruto himself must have greatly exceeded what he did when he fought Gaara."

Temari's eyes widened slightly. She was one of the few witnesses to the time Naruto fought Gaara and the only one, human anyway, who remained fully conscious through the whole fight.

"Greatly exceeded what he did when he fought Gaara? But that was only a few months after…" She paused for a moment. "Yet he never told anyone what really happened."

"A few bits and pieces, it never made any sense though. If you pressed him he would admit that he and Sasuke used the Rasengan and Chidori against each other a few times and he used a bunch of clones but that's like a typical shinobi saying he used a kunai in a fight. Anytime someone pressed him for more he'd start berating himself that he allowed his friends to get hurt. He's really not what he seems to be on the surface. Took me a while to figure that one out." Shikamaru finished with a chuckle.

The two chuunin carrying the sedan chair eased it to the ground and Naruto told all four of them to go get some dinner and come back to this suite later. Naruto looked around and knew the Anbu team was still around lurking in the shadows. As the four Leaf chuunin left Naruto helped the old man out of the chair and into his suite. As they headed in one of his clones ran up with a box, handed it off to Naruto and dispersed.

"Smooth work with the clone kid, I didn't see or feel you whip that one up, not bad. That my dango you got there?"

"Yep, plenty of it too."

Naruto was surprised at the old man as he walked into the suite. Although definitely slow and despite the slight tremors in his hands, the old man still showed the remants of a smoothness that betrayed the mans former shinobi career as he moved. The shaking of the mans hands slowed as he opened the box and smiled. Reaching in he smiled even more as he pulled out a dango stick and promptly took a bite out one of the spheres.

"Let's take a look at you now." The old man stated after swallowing.

"I told you that your not here for me."

"Ya, ya I know but the other guy ain't here yet and I've always wanted to see Minatos masterpiece. So peel that shirt off an' lemme see tha Shiki Fuujin ya gots on ya."

Naruto sighed but he pulled his shirt off.

The old man ran through a short series of hand seals and his hands took on a soft yellow glow. He opened his right palm and moved it to hover just over Narutos stomach. Naruto felt an odd tugging on his stomach. The old man moved his hand to the side and up slightly.

"Nice. Very elegant combination of a couple of Shishou Fuuin with the Shiki Fuujin. Looks like there's some subtle changes though."

The wrinkled oldster twisted his fingers slightly and the yellow glow expanded over the seal on Narutos stomach. A faint glowing yellow copy of the sealing script appeared in mid air over Narutos stomach. The glow intensified slightly on one of the eight points of the copy and large amounts of glowing yellow sealing script seemed to unroll out of the point to float across the room. The odd letters seemed to wrap around the room, across the walls, rolling up to circle around the ceiling in a massive spiral.

"O.k. maybe subtle wasn't the right word…Damn." The old guy muttered

"This isn't going to screw up the seal is it?" Naruto asked.

"Don't ya worry none 'bout that. This's just a technique to reveal the Fuuinjutsu techniques of the people I've taught stuff to. Only works for me and those I've taught. Jiraiya taught ya some sealing I 'spect but I wouldn't be able to use this on anything you've written since there ain't no blood link 'tween us. At least not yet anyways. Your pop was something else, this is an incredible seal. He only sealed up half of the fox's chakra into ya and that's damn impressive. Looks like there's another piece of this though, probably left that piece with Jiraiya knowing your pop."

There was a knock on the door. The old man waved his hands quickly and all of the yellow letters instantly vanished. Naruto walked over to the door to reveal Gaara.

"Come on in."

"You wished to see me here?" Gaara asked as he entered.

"Yeah, Gaara this is Minoru Takashima. If you don't mind I'd like him to look over that new seal you used to stop Shukaku. Hey old man, Gaara here is the Kazekage. He was the Jinchuuriki of Shukaku until the Akatzuki pulled it out of him. They're apparently back and they tried to use the sand demon against Suna a few days ago. Gaara was able to reseal it back into himself but its only temporary. He thinks that it will escape so he plans on killing himself and with this new seal he'll take the damn thing into the after world with him."

"Ooooo, Kazekage eh? I ain't met one of thems afore. Ya's gots some puurty tasty dango here but too damn much sand if'n ya ask me. Kazekage, Hokage. Kage, Kage and sand all around. Alls we need now is'n ocean and we cans have us a beach party." Minoru babbled as his eyes took on a glazed look.

"Damn it would you knock it off already. Just look at his seal and see what you can do." Naruto said as he pulled his shirt back on.

Minoru eyes lost their glazed look and he glared at Naruto for a moment. He walked over to Gaara and his hands ran through a different series of seals. As before a soft yellow glow wrapped around his hands and he slowly moved his hands over Gaara's chest. The old man shook his head.

"Doesn't look good." He said as the glow faded from his hands.

"You can't be done already!" Naruto protested.

"Of course not. That was just a preliminary scan." Minoru said as he pulled a scroll out of his jacket and unrolled it onto a nearby table revealing that it was blank. He then pulled out a vial and brush along with a small knife. He nicked his thumb with the knife and allowed some of his blood to drip into the vial.

"I'm going to need some of your blood too Gaara." He said.

"As you wish." The Kazekage said softly as he stretched out his hand.

Minoru grabbed Gaaras hand, deftly nicked the Kazekage's thumb and squeezed some of his blood into the vial as well. He released Gaaras hand and dipped the brush into the vial and stirred. A few moments later he drew the brush out, running the brush along the edge of the vial to draw off the excess blood and quickly drew a series of characters onto the scroll. He dipped the brush into the vial again, drawing off the excess like before and wrote out a formula in sealing script onto his left forearm. Once more he added the mixture of blood onto the brush, this time he grabbed Gaara's left arm out and wrote out a similar formula onto the Kazekage's forearm. Gaara looked on seemingly bored with the entire procedure. Minoru unrolled more of the scroll, leaving a blank area. He wrapped some of the blank area around his left forearm, hiding the formula he had just put there. He then moved his now wrapped arm against Gaaras still outstretched arm in such a way that the formulas were would have been facing each other if not for the scroll. He then wrapped the scroll around Gaaras arm and continued until both of their arms were wrapped up together in such a way that the formula he first wrote onto the scroll was revealed. He closed his eyes and ran through a few one handed seals. Seeing that actually got Gaaras interest for a moment. The scroll smoked for a few moments until it flashed and disappeared. Naruto looked on surprised as the script the old man had written in blood on their arms flared yellow itself and also disappeared.

"You're a little too trusting as a Kage ya know. You should never allow anyone to use your blood, especially a seal master." Minoru said to Gaara as he made a few seals and caused the remaining blood in the vial to burst into flames.

"I trust Naruto. Besides it doesn't matter anyway I will not be the Kazekage much longer." Gaara said.

Minoru rolled his eyes as he ran through the same series of seals he used earlier to examine the seal on Narutos stomach.

"O.k. your turn now. Pull off the shirt and let me see that seal." Minoru said to Gaara.

Gaara simply nodded before pulling off his shirt to reveal a circular, six point seal on his chest. Minoru gasped and nearly leaped back as he pulled away from Gaara.

"You sealed one of the great tailed beasts with a six point seal!" Minoru practically hissed.

"It is an additional point over the original seal that held Shukaku within me." Gaara stated in his typical quiet voice.

"Damn. They used an odd numbered seal then? It's amazing you survived. It's amazing that damn thing didn't break the seal, kill you, your entire village and escape. Must have been one hell of a five point seal. I bet you still had a lot of problems with the damn thing didn't you?" Minoru said as he looked at Gaara nervously.

"Damn it old man, forget about that crap and see what you can do with the new seal." Naruto growled.

Minoru looked from Naruto to Gaara and sighed as he returned to looking at Gaaras new seal. In a few moments he was intently studying lines of sealing script as they floated through the air. Naruto looked on curiously, he actually recognized much of the writing thanks to Jiraiya but a significant amount of the floating characters were beyond him. About the only thing he was certain of was that Gaara's new seal was not as complex as the one he bore to hold the Kyuubi. For nearly an hour Naruto stood there as the old man examined Gaara's seal. With a great sigh the ancient seal master finally stopped and seemed to shrink. He turned to Naruto and the new Hokage could tell from the mans expression that there was nothing he could do.

"I'm sorry." Minoru said quietly.

"Damn it to hell and back again." Naruto said angrily.

"Naruto, thank you for trying but there is nothing that can be done." Gaara said as he turned to the young man he considered his first friend.

"He's right kid." Minoru sighed as he reached out and grabbed another dango stick.

After a few moments of silence Gaara said goodby and left. Naruto hoped he was going to see Matsuri.

"I'll have them bring you back to Konoha in the morning. You can have any of the rooms you want here. Your Anbu and Chuunin escorts will be staying here as well."

"Naruto…" Minoru paused. "Stop by my place when you get home. I'd like to teach one last Hokage a few things before I check out of this life. I could tell you a few things 'bout your dad as well."

"Yeah, I'll definitely do that. Have a good night old man." Naruto said as he turned and headed out.

He stood there for a brief moment before the Anbu commander appeared before him.

"Keep an eye on him and tell the chuunin squad that you're all to take him back to Konoha in the morning as soon as he's ready."

"What about you Hokage-sama? Kakashi-san said that we should try to talk you into allowing us to stay instead of guarding a senile old man." The Anbu captain said causing Naruto to sigh.

"You can forget about that. I'll be fine here, just tell Kakashi I was being stubborn. He won't give you any grief if you tell him that."

"As you wish Hokage-sama." The masked man said as he opened the door and the other three Anbu appeared.

"And would you knock off the 'sama' stuff, you're all making me sound like an old man.

Naruto thought he almost heard a soft chuckle for a moment before the Anbu team vanished into the Suite. He shook his head as he walked a few doors down to his own suite.

--ooo--

A few days later.

The wedding went off without a hitch and most if not all of the residents of Suna showed up for the ceremony. Actually expecting something like that, Gaara had the ceremony just outside of the Village entrance and the walls above were packed with people. Naruto had ordered Shikamaru to stick around until after the wedding and he smiled everytime he saw Temari harassing his friend. It took a few more days after that before Naruto grudgingly accepted Kakashi's request to have Shikamaru return.

It was unusual, very unusual but Naruto spent the next month and a half at Suna. He was sure he was irritating the village council back at Konoha and was certainly driving poor Kakashi nuts but he really didn't give a damn. He was using a combination of Kage Bunshin and some of Jiraiya's long distance transportation techniques to maintain contact with his home and nobody could convince him to do otherwise. Earning the eternal gratitude of the entire village of Suna helped placate the Konoha village council immensely and was the final reason why the council grudgingly accepted Narutos decision to stay at the sand village a little longer than most thought he should. Although Naruto was more than a bit embarrassed when he found out that the Suna council wanted to erect a statue of him and Gaara near the front gate.

--ooo--

The time passed far too quickly and before he knew it the dreaded day finally came. Gaara had woken early, before anyone realized. He left a note to Matsuri before heading out into the desert where he used the wakizashi on himself. Naruto sank into a dark depression and wouldn't talk to anyone throughout the funeral. The entire village was stunned when at the beginning of the funeral the skies darkened as clouds appeared from seemingly nowhere and a soft rain fell on the gathered people for a few minutes. It rarely rained in Suna and never at this time of year. A few people glanced at the Hokage but the stoney expression on Narutos face precluded any conversation. Gaara had left letters to his siblings and Naruto. Naruto's dark cloud lifted slightly after reading Gaara's heartfelt letter of appreciation for all the things Naruto had done for him that had started with teaching him that he could care for others. That evening he said his goodbyes and packed up to head home.

Matsuri walked him to the gate as the sun sank towards the horizon. They were both quiet as they finally reached the gate. After a few moments of their shared silence Matsuri finally spoke.

"Naruto…thank you." She said softly as she caressed her stomach. She didn't show yet and wouldn't for several months yet.

"So, twins?" His forced smile vanished. "Matsuri, I am so sorry. It shouldn't be this way."

"It's really far too early to tell but the medics are certain there's at least two here…Naruto." She paused. "I can't argue that it shouldn't be this way but there's no need for you to apologize. If it wasn't for you I wouldn't have as much of Gaara as I do. If it wasn't for you he might not have defeated Shukaku. I could go on and on but know this, our entire village knows exactly what you've done for Gaara going back all the way to that horrible invasion." She paused for a moment. "I found his notes concerning sealing demons. It was a much closer thing then he let you believe. If you hadn't showed up when you did it is likely that everyone here would now be dead."

"Maybe. I'm sure I made it easier but I'm sure that Gaara wouldn't let anything happen to his village."

Matsuri nodded she really couldn't argue with Narutos faith in Gaara even though deep down she felt that Naruto was wrong.

"One last thing." She reached into her robe and pulled out something wrapped in cloth.

Naruto flinched at the sight of it, he knew exactly what it was and before she could unwrap it he grabbed her hand.

"I know you wanted this." She said as her voice started to crack and her eyes welled up with tears.

"Yes but you don't have to take it out." He answered as gently took the wrapped bundle out of her hands. He gave her a quick hug, turned and walked away.

Naruto turned one last time to look at the entrance to Suna in the far distance as the light of evening faded into the darkness of night. He clutched the damn wakizashi wrapped in its cloth that Matsuri had given him and without realizing it his eyes turned red. They were all going to die. Every last person who ever put on one of those black robes with the red clouds was going to die if he had anything to say about it. This time there would be no mistakes, no matter what the cost to himself he would hunt down every last one of the bastards and completely, utterly destroy them all.

A/N - some of the fight here with Gaara and Naruto vs. Shukaku has been written since when I first began this story. Hard to believe it's taken me this long to get it completed into a chapter, hopefully chapter four will be up in less time than it took for this one.


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